Narabi no Toki
by xkumaxchanx
Summary: Archaeologists in Japan make an unusual discovery, and are swept over to a secretive corporation, ITC, led by Naraku Ishizaki, and are soon put in a dangerous situation. Having taken this choice to save one, they must protect themselves, 500 years ago.
1. Quondam phone makes me roam

(continued from summary)

corporation that has put them in trouble. They are then preparing to travel into the past, and must protect themselves…500 years ago…

By the way, this was adapted from Timeline by Michael Chrichton.

MY FIRST FANFICTION!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE NO FLAMES!!!!!!!!!!

Read and review!!!!!! Many thanks to my sister!!! Read her stories!!! Her pen name: alohaturtle

--

_Quondam phone, makes me roam_

_To the place I belong, Old Black Rocky, country byway_

_Quondam phone, it's on roam_

--

"What the-"

The car jerked to a stop, causing the couple to hit the dashboard. They both peered over the car's fuming hood.

"Honey, what was that?"

"Just a pothole…don't worry…" the man hummed an unusual tune as he searched for his sunglasses' case. The sun had gone down a while ago across the desolate desert land. "Argh. Honey, turn on the light. Dark as hell down here…"

"What is up with this highway?! There are so many potholes!! I swear, if we went on the correct road…" She went on and on about potholes and the highway they were on as she and her husband stretched in different ways like contortionists to hit the light and find a little black case.

Finally the light was on and the man stopped struggling. "Honey…"

"…like we actually-what?" She looked in the direction her husband was. Her eyes grew wide in horror as she stared at her onlooking husband. "Did we…?

Her husband only nodded in reply as he stared at the old man's body on the dirt road. The lady yelled all the curse words she knew as she jumped out of the car.

The newlyweds ran over to the man and bent over to inspect any damage.

"Excuse-"

"Quondam phoooooooone makes me ro-ooam…" the man sang in glee, smiling an ear to ear smile, rolling in the dirt as if nothing had happened to him.

"Potholes, eh?" She asked her husband. "God, it's hot…"

The man went to retrieve a huge, heavy duty flashlight from the trunk. Coming back to the man, he saw that he was shaky, balding, and bearded. And old. So how did he get out in the middle of the desert without a car?

"I can spit fire, I'm not a liar!" In a supposed attempt, he spit out a wad of mucus, landing on his head. He merely laughed. The couple looked at each other worriedly.

The man's black flowing robes were sprawled out on the dirt road, arms out above his head as if he were flying. The groom looked closer, relieved not to see blood.

"I think he's hurt." the woman said, kneeling.

"Yeah. He certainly seems confused."

"Confused, amused, bruised…" the man said, laughing, causing a cloud of dust to rise.

"Come on, we have to take him to a hospital." the woman said.

Acting the obedient husband, he nodded and helped the man up by his armpits. His clothes were heavy, made of a sort of felt material, but he wasn't sweating the way the man expected him to. In fact, he felt cool, as if he had just stepped out of an air conditioned building.

He heard the man muttering, "Left it, heft it, go back now, and get it now and how..."

Something white next to where the man had been laying, though, caught the woman's eye. It was a ceramic, and she saw the letters ITC stamped on one side.

"Quondam phone makes me roooooooooooooam!!!!!!!!!" the old man's voice made her remember their business. She helped her husband set the man in the backseat, and then clambered into the passenger's seat herself. They then made their way to the Nagoya Walk in Emergency Hospital, continuing on the straight road.

--

"How are you feeling?" the lady asked as the man awoke from laughing and flailing.

The road had brought bags to the couple's eyes, though the man had gotten a good twenty minutes of sleep.

"Feeling? Peeling, reeling, fine, fine…" the man responded. He then blinked about five times. "The quondam phone made me roam."

"What's your name, sir?

"Name, dame, blame, same old game."

"Rhyming means he's a schizophrenic." the husband said. "I saw it on TV."

--

"Unhand me, unband me!" the man shouted as soon as they had strapped him onto the gurney.

"Take him to the Trauma unit."

"So you say, out of my way!!"

The nurses wheeled him into a room under a sign that said 'Trauma Unit. Doctors and Nurses only. Others only on important calls'. The couple stayed behind in the waiting room.

The senior unit nurse, Sato Matsuyamo, later came to the couple along with a policeman, Masatoshi Takuro. "Did you get anything?" the couple asked.

"We searched for pockets, but he's wearing a robe so we only found one main compartment. Nothing that really helped us recognize who he is. No wallet, no credit card, no keys… Matsuyamo held out a neatly folded piece of paper and showed it to the couple.

The two took the paper and peered at it. On it was an unusual gridlike printout with dots like colons. On the bottom: mon.ste.mere.

"Mean anything to you?" Takuro asked them.

"No…" the man responded. He was quick to get out. "Oh. Wait, honey, show him that thing you found earlier."

"Oh yeah…" the lady briskly pulled out the ceramic piece from her pant pocket, which she had put on a chain so it looked like a necklace. She handed it to the officer, who held a curious face as he took the piece. "And see," she pointed to the said; "it says ITC. And it didn't have the chain on it."

"Hmm. Where did you find it?" the officer asked, turning to the man, who had witnessed his wife finding it.

"I'd say about thirty yards from where we had stopped. Maybe about 10 yards from under an over pass. And right near a sign. The road had a merging arrow." the man stopped, out of breath, amazed he had remembered all of that. Like a computer.

"Nothing else?"

"No." Again, quick to respond.

"Thank you." the officer then took the ceramic piece and put it into his breast pocket.

"Oh…sir? Ma'am?" the lady turned to Takuro and Matsuyamo.

"Hm?"

"This is a church."

"A church?" Takuro and Matsuyamo looked at the paper to see if they had missed anything the lady hadn't.

"Yeah, the floor plan tells it all. Here's the longer axis of a cross, the nave…I'm sure. And the squares inside other squares…you know, this could be a monastery. And even the label: 'mon.ste.mere'. Doesn't 'mon' stand for monastery?" she handed the page back to Matsuyamo when her husband tapped his finger on his watch.

"We really should be on our way now." he said, dusting himself off and shaking hands in turn with the nurse and cop.

"Oh, of course," Matsuyamo smiled and shook his hand.

"Thank you so much for your help. We're sorry we delayed you. Have a nice trip." Takuro said, pointing them in the direction of the exit and waving as they drove off.

"Sato?" A young nurse poked her head around the corner. "MRI results are back."

"Already?" Sato walked down the hall to the room where the man had been scanned, the nurse and Takuro following at a quick pace to keep up with Matsuyamo's long strides.

"Okay." the younger nurse said briskly as she picked up the scan results from the table and lectured on and on. Basically, the point was that the newlywed couple had not run him over. The bump they said they had experienced was, as the man had said, merely a pothole.

"And how's he now?" Sato asked.

"Sleeping in his room. Took a while to get it that way, though."

"Where's his room?"

"Right around the corner."

"Funny," said Takuro;"how the folks said they found him in the desert. No car. No nothing for ten miles.

Ignoring Takuro, Matsuyamo said,"And his fingers?"

"Circulatory problem. They're turning purple."

"How the hell did this guy get into the middle of the desert?" Takuro paced.

"I don't know," Matsuyamo said, "but-"

Alarms began to sound a series of high pitched beeps. Their instinct was to run for the man's room.

--

As Takuro stood to the side of the room, three doctors ran in at top speed. The man lifted his head up from his pillow. His oxygen mask, clear before, started to fog up, and then turned a bright, shiny red color.

He had thrown up so much blood that it spurted out the side of the mask, splattering his cheeks, the pillow, the wall, even the doctors.

His eyes wide with panic, they pleaded for help as his mask, overflowing with blood, caused him to make gurgling noises.

"Turn his head, Sato!" a doctor yelled. "Turn it!"

Sato wrenched off his oxygen mask and attempted to turn his head, but he refused; he shook his head from side to side. Takuro rushed over to his bedside to hold his shoulders down.

"Suction!"

Takuro struggled for the suction tube on the wall, but the floor was slippery with blood. Falling to his knees, he grabbed at the bed's railing for support.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Come on!"

One of the doctors now held the suction ready at hand while Sato held open the man's jaw. The doctor stuck the tube in his mouth, on his tongue, as Takuro turned the valve on the wall.

Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…

The monitors' alarms changed pitch to a steady, long, ear-deafening one. Cardiac arrest.

They continued on until they smelled a sharp odor and immediately knew the man's bowels had released.

"Clear." a doctor said." Close the curtain, Sato."

The nurse yanked the curtain shut.

Beep…Beep…Beep…Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep…


	2. Ishizaki Technology Corporation

Readers: With the monastery map in the chappie before, I made a mistake! I changed it in my writing & planning but was too lazy to re-edit it (I already did once), so, just so you know, "mon.ste.mere." is supposed to be "mon.joe". I will be writing "mon.joe" from now, even though it sounds weird. Also, thank you to those who have reviewed!!! Today I was typing kind of slow because I got burned in my cooking class. Also, I'm lazy, so that contributed to the late chappie too.

On with the chapter! Enjoy!

--

"Thank you, Officer Takuro," Sesshoumaru said into his cell phone. "Yes. Yes. We'll do it immediately. Thank you again."

With that, he switched off his phone. (A/N: Sesshoumaru's not important in this story. Sorry all Sesshoumaru lovers!) "Totosai's dead. They just identified his body."

"Where?" Naraku sat with his back to Sesshoumaru, his huge office chair keeping him and his expressions to himself.

"Nagoya Hospital. They say he died of massive cardiac arrest, but there was also a circulatory problem in his fingers. They said that they were purple. Anyway, they're going to do an autopsy. It's required by law." Sesshoumaru said as Kikyou looked at him worriedly.

In a rude wave of his hand, Naraku said, with a hint of annoyance, "The autopsy results won't show anything. That man had transcription errors. Why are you wasting my time with all this?"

"One of your employees just died." Kikyou said.

At that moment, Naraku turned in his chair and stood up, hands flat on his desk (A/N: vein pop heehee. sorry.). "There's nothing I can do about this. I have enough to do. Just handle it, Sesshoumaru."

Naraku Ishizaki had shown early signs of a kid genius. At the age of eight, he had told his mom, "Don't be stupid," when she said he would electrocute himself if he put his hand over a fire. This was correct, on terms of being smart. Then, about a year later, when his grandmother died, Naraku sat tearless and asked his mother if he could have the 26 dollars and fifty-six cents his grandmother owed him in a check.

At the age of eighteen, Naraku graduated summa cum laude in physics and started a new area in superconducting magnetism.

Then he started ITC- Ishizaki Technology Corporation.

One of Naraku's favorite physicists was the famed Richard Feynman, who thought of the quantum computer that would be billions of times more powerful than the regular household one. Of course, Feynman, the big dreamer, wanted his to be first, but Feynman's ideas of a quantum computer slowly drained out of everyone's minds, and everyone forgot what a quantum computer actually was. Save Naraku.

29 years old, Naraku set his company out to build the very first quantum computer in the history of the world. For several years, no one heard anything of Naraku. But they didn't care. Neither did he.

Moving back to Japan from the US, Naraku built an ITC on Hokkaido. In Kitami, he created it to be the main laboratory, and the one in the US a sister company. The US business of ITC just mainly worked on building faster computers, while the one Naraku stayed at in Hokkaido housed the quantum computer.

--

"Problem one, financial problems. We need another billion before you go home today," Naraku said, pointing at Kikyou. "I need to hire more board members. Three, actually. These men can't stay in order by themselves.

Kikyou's heels clicked on the tile floor and echoed as she read some notes Sesshoumaru had just handed her about the projects.

"This is our first slip. Any more, we're doomed. And, Kikyou, you'll be checking on the Fukui project tomorrow. Since we called, they asked that our inspector arrive early and then they'd take you on a helicopter to the site."

"Yes. Totosai was our first incident. Fortunately, the cop wasn't the very brightest, and it won't go any further if we just stay silent. We already seem to have a reporter chasing us at Fukui, Hamamatsu, and Ishikari-gawa, so people might start to put two and two together if they spill there to the reporter."

"That's the second big problem," Sesshoumaru said. "Going public. We can't always count on having a fool of a cop sifting through our incidents."

--

Officer Masatoshi Takuro came into Nagoya Hospital the next morning, looking for Sato Matsuyamo. The man who had died was to be checked this morning; he wanted to see if the results had changed after they had done scans again.

"…watch the arteries. Section by section…now."

Sato said, "It looks like something jumped."

"Something _did_ jump." Takuro said, standing in the doorway. Sato looked to him and smiled as if saying hi, and then turned back to the MRI technician to signal for him to continue.

"Yeah," the technician explained, "The arterioles aren't' lined up. I'll show you again."

The circles of the arteries didn't just jump up and down, but sideways, like a crab.

"That's why he had gangrene?" Takuro asked.

"Yeah and look. You say he died of massive coronary? Big surprise." he said. Up popped an image on the computer of the man's heart. "Ventricular walls don't line up either."

"I'm not buying it. Call the repair techs to fix your machine. You have a problem with your MRI- there's nothing more to it."  
--

"Hello?" Kikyou's voice rang through the phone to Takuro's side.

"Hi, this is Officer Takuro calling from Nagoya Hospital. Can I speak to a… vice president by the name of Sesshoumaru?"

"Sorry, he's in meetings right now. Can I help?"

"You're another vice president?"

"Yes."

"It's about an old man, died of cardiac arrest, about 70, we called here-"

"Totosai? Oh yes." A fake-sad sigh. "Such a pity."

"He was cremated, I expect you're aware?"

"Yes."

"We've some of his personal effects. What would you like us to do with them?"

"Effects?"

"Well, a diagram. It looks like a church or monastery. Says M-O-N-.-J-O-E. on it."

"Uh-huh."

"Do you know why he would have a map of a monastery?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, he got a bit depressed since his wife died, and he had been acting strangely of late."

"Would you like to have it back?

"If you wouldn't mind."

"And this ceramic piece? With 'ITC' stamped on the side?"

"Oh, okay."

"I was wondering what it was."

"It's an ID tag. For getting around our security system."

"You would like that back too?"

"Please."

"Uh-huh. Okay. Bye."

--

"Do we have to fly so low?" Kikyou shifted in her seat uneasily.

Miroku laughed. 24 years old, he was the assistant to Professor Higurashi in history. "It's perfectly safe."

The wind beat on all sides of the helicopter as they moved on through the quickly rising mist.

"I'm surprised Professor Higurashi didn't come with us." Kikyou had expected to deal with him directly, and not with his assistant. She was, after all, a high level executive from the providing company.

"Unfortunately, he had a prior appointment."

Pressing her index finger against the window, Kikyou said, "What's that?"

"Proton magnetometer. Looks for magnetic anomalies in the ground below us that could indicate artifacts."

"Any equipment you'd like that you don't have?"

Once again, Miroku smiled and turned his head around to Kikyou's direction from his seat alongside the pilot. "No thank you, we have everything we've asked for."

Kikyou knew all about him: a graduate, cum laude, Miroku was one of the "experimental" historians who set out to create the past before their very eyes. He was a fanatic; he had apparently learned medieval outfits, language, and custom in complete detail. He was one of them She had been told he even knew how to us a katana.

Behind his grey, collared, short sleeve shirt, she could tell that muscles rippled beneath, though it didn't seem he would have to use them at any time; he seemed the nicest kid on the block.

_Nice smile_, she thought._ And tall too._

Miroku looked down and saw an elderly lady, looking up at them, and shaking her fist violently. All Miroku did was smile and wave back. "She's mad about us coming early."

"I would be too; it's 6 o'clock. Why did we come so early?" Kikyou asked, holding up the wrist with her dainty silver watch on it.

"Light. Early lights reveal anything from contours to crop marks. Anything we hadn't seen before."

"And…where's the project?"

"Coming up. And here is our Doppler signal…"

A series of high pitched electronic beeps came from the front of the helicopter.

"Stand by. Landing in five…four…three…two…and one." The pilot counted down with the beeps that had suddenly grown faster, and the dark green tree tops fell away as they entered the valley of Ishikari-gawa, a brown sort of snake-ish river that twisted this way and that, in many loops that could have been a frustrating knot of rope. Early as it was, there wee kayakers along it for a peaceful ride alone.

"500 years ago this was the military frontier. The far side was Chinese and this one Japanese. Now this is all owned by Japanese, but it used to be grounds for the Chinese castle in the Qin dynasty. See there? That's Ling Sheng Su. The castle of the emperor. Fighting went back and forth." Miroku explained and pointed to both sides of the river.

Kikyou said, "But this isn't our project…"

"No," Miroku replied, smiling. "I'm just showing you the general layout of the region."

--

"…would you like to circle it again?"

"No," Kikyou said, keeping the disappointment locked up instead of letting it out with a sigh. Looking down at Ling Sheng Su, she then sighed. Though the walls had been restored and were easier to see compared to the other sites of the project, she said, "You let the tourists in?"

"That wasn't really our decision. The government opened it to tourists because it was a new site, but we'll close it again when we reconstruct."

"And when will that be?"

"Maybe about between two and five years from now." Miroku said. "So…we've come to an end. Would you have any questions, call us."

"Thank you. This really is lovely." Kikyou said, but thought, _I've seen enough_. "We can go back.

------------

So, how was it? I know, I know. Lame ending, right? Well now you know that I'm a sucker. Well, all that happened, really, was that Kikyou visited the dig site, Fukui, and their progress isn't exactly the greatest ever.

**CHAPTER III:** Kagome's grandfather, the professor and leader of the archaeological group, is introduced, along with Inuyasha. Inuyasha's parents died, leaving him to be the 2nd ranking student. (He already graduated, though.) 23 years old, Inuyasha helps at the dig finding out what happened when Kikyou came, crap, etc. (They don't know each other, okay?) A reporter visits the site and she asks questions about the site and ITC's projects. Then, suspiciously, after Kikyou had talked to the professor, he (Higurashi) leaves to ITC.

Yeah. It's just a little preview of what happens in the next chappie. So far I have everything planned out to the sixth chapter, once again, in thanks to my sister. Her pen-name: **alohaturtle**. Read her stories! And review! Thanks!

The title "Narabi no Toki" probably is not grammatically correct, but "narabi" means line and "toki" means time. Switch it around a bit, TIMELINE!!! Get it? Yay… Sorry. I have problems. Anyway, it's all from writing and planning the story.

**DISCLAIMER- I OWN THE INUYASHA CHARACTERS!!! JUST KIDDING. REVIEW PLEASE!!!**


	3. You want Disneyland?

Review thanks...

alohaturtle- thank you.

katelu- queasy, Katherine. Queasy. You should write fan fictions too.

BananaHead- Thank you! 11. But I like to consider myself 12; I'm turning 12 on Feb. 1 (written on 1/28/05! I'm officially a dozen years old now!)

SetsunaGate- Thank you! Please keep reviewing!

ShizukiHeart- I think it's a bestseller. Not sure. Thank you!

Hanyou-ass- Yes, blood. Whee. Sorry my friends keep bothering you. They bother me, too. Thanks anyway for the review!

Please review… I'm in need of it… xP

Enjoy! Enjoy your little hearts out and then review!

* * *

"Let's continue, Inuyasha." Professor Higurashi squinted at the helicopter above.

"Okay. Hold on."

Inuyasha was one of Higurashi's graduate students. The Professor had five graduate students working on the site, on being his granddaughter. Plus another two dozen undergraduates.

Higurashi was fit and well past sixty, with the typical look of a college professor: a button-down shirt and a tie. What made him so loved by his students was the way he helped them with studies, finances, family, you name it. He was always ready to solve it, though it seemed he never did anything at all to help them.

Inuyasha was an undergraduate in his second year when his parents died. He was devastated, so much that he thought that he would drop out of school. Higurashi influenced the student in a way that brought him back to life; Inuyasha started first with his parents' estate, then paid off the many debts he had.

Inuyasha worked on the computer tripod and waited for the GPS system to calibrate.

These days, all structure models were made on the computer. They could be assembled, revised, destroyed. The computer was fed mapped coordinates from the site; the image that appeared was in the exact perspective they thought it had been.

"Kazu?" Inuyasha asked.

"Yeah."

"We have a mill here."

"Perfect." the Professor said, looking at the features that were shown on the computer.

Kazunori Shiro, a physical anthropologist, just happened to be standing by, a reporter behind him.

"Ah. You'll be Ms. Hare?" (A/N: Ha-re. not hare, like the bunny thing.)

"Yes." the lady came up to the Professor and shook his hand. "I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to see me."

-

"As you know, for some time now my newspaper has been working on an article about ITC."

"Yes." though somewhat irritated, Higurashi held a face that made the impression that the reporter was the most important person in the world.

"ITC sponsors this site, true?"

"Yes."

"We've been told they contribute a million dollars per year?"

"That's about correct."

This went on for about twenty-five minutes, and Kazunori and Inuyasha seemed bored, dragging their feet, kicking dust.

The reporter poked and prodded with her questions when Inuyasha's radio beeped. A young, boyish voice came on.

"Inuyasha? Inuyasha, is the Professor with you? Ask him if he knows a Masatoshi Takuro."

"He's busy, Kouga. What is it?"

"A cop in Nagoya. He keeps talking about a dead ITC employee. He wants to send us a picture of our monastery."

"Tell him to send it through to our email."

Inuyasha and the Professor walked on, talking about what the reporter had showed him, and left Kazunori behind.

Getting to Ishikari-gawa's edge, they climbed into their rowboat, which had been tied up at the river's side, and rowed to Fukui.

As Inuyasha stopped rowing, the Professor got off where Miroku and Kikyou waited.

"Well. I've taken Dr. Miroku's excellent tour, in helicopter and on foot. It's evident you're doing great. But Dr. Miroku says he is going to be late for his…"

"Katana lesson." Miroku supplied, and Inuyasha nodded. He was to go with Miroku.

"Yes. His katana lesson. We wouldn't want to be late for _that_…" Kikyou said. Turning to the Professor, she said, "Shall we walk the site in the meantime?"

"Sure."

As the Professor and Kikyou walked away from Ishikari-gawa, Miroku and Inuyasha walked away towards their "tournament grounds", as Miroku liked to call it.

-

"Shit, Miroku! Not funny!" Miroku had knocked Inuyasha's katana out of his hand and held his own at Inuyasha neck as a crowd of undergraduates cheered. It had been a viable duel.

This had all started with Miroku's famous speech, "To kill a man…"

Inuyasha could've tackled him if he wanted to. But his radio beeped and Kouga said, "Inuyasha. Come here."

-

"You don't have one at the police department?"

Inuyasha asked, and mouthed to Kouga, _They don't have a scanner at—_"Yes. We need fairly high resolution. Yes, the hospital scanner is fine. Yes. Thank you." Inuyasha sounded relieved. "Bye."

He hung up and went outside, looking off the cliff to where Kikyou and the Professor stood. Miroku was changing frequencies on his radio to find the frequency the Professor had switched his to. Finding it, he and Inuyasha sat down and listened.

"I understand-"

"If I knew you wanted Disneyland, I'd never have agreed."

Puzzled, Kikyou said, "We don't want Disneyland."

"Well, that's what you'll get if you keep pushing us like this."

"Yes, but can't you just rebuild even the church, and the cloister, and maybe the refectory, because…"

"Refectory? We still aren't even sure where the refectory _is_."

"We do not want a fantasy land, I assure you."

Inuyasha snickered.

"But it can't be done."

"We think it can. Just a part."

-

"Tower! We don't even have a tower!" Inuyasha said. Luckily, they did not switch on their radio to speak, just to hear. On the other hand, the Professor had, and they were able to hear Kikyou and the Professor speaking.

Soon Kouga had joined them in their eavesdropping.

"Nobody's even taken a look at the woods."

Miroku said quizzically.

Over the radio: "Your proposal is interesting. I'll discuss it with the others, and we'll meet later at lunch."

-

"Check and see our scans to see if we have any towers, then scan the woods later." the Professor said when he got back.

"Okay." Kouga pushed the monitor's button and up popped a screen that said 'Inbox'. "Oops…"

"Hold it." Inuyasha pointed at the screen. "Takuro. RE: Monastery map."

"Good eyes as ever…" the Professor smiled and motioned for Kouga to open the email.

The screen, at the bottom, said 'loading' for about 5 seconds, then a faint image of dots appeared, and at the bottom of the image, 'M.O.N.J.O.E.'

"God." Inuyasha blinked at the screen. "That's our monastery." Turning to Kouga, he said, "And he said he found this on a dead guy from the desert? Weird."

-

About 15 minutes later and after the scans were finished, Inuyasha, Miroku, Kikyou, and the Professor sat at a table in a restaurant.

"Our question: how did you know the refectory was next to the cloister?" the Professor asked Kikyou. She felt like she was being interrogated by the police.

"Aren't they always next to each other?"

Inuyasha and Miroku both gave her a look that made her want to take her reply back.

"Monasteries aren't my specialty, and you presumably know that. I must have heard it somewhere."

Inuyasha unfolded the map from his pocket and slid it over the table to Kikyou. "Why does an ITC employee have a drawing of our monastery that is more complete than our own?"

"I don't know. Where did you get this?"

"A policeman in Nagoya," the Professor supplied quickly.

Kikyou just stared a blank stare at him. No words. She said nothing.

Finally, he said, "Ms. Kikyou, I think you're holding out on us. I think you have been doing you own analysis of our grounds and have not given us results."

"Professor Higurashi, that is not true. It is-I-I can assure you…"

"No, you can't. What time does your plane leave?"

"Three."

"I'm ready to leave now."

He got up, and Miroku and Inuyasha followed suit.

"But… I'm leaving to New York."

"Then I think you'd better change your plans."

"But Mr. Ishizaki will be in meetings, and…"

"Ms. Kikyou." the Professor said, "_Fix it_."

-

Kagome Higurashi-brown-black hair, bright eyes, and lightly tanned, hung in the air off the Fukui chapel ceiling.

Writing down notes about the construction just inches from her face, she hung in a harness on her back.

Kagome was the newest graduate on site, having joined not three weeks ago. So hands-on it was right after her graduation. No more experiments. Hanging up on ceilings, gathering mortar samples. That was what she was doing when she heard a voice say, "Hey."

She looked down. Bad idea. She instantly became dizzy from the height she was up. It was a good 40, 50 feet.

"Easy." she said, as Inuyasha gave slack to her lines.

"Yup." helping her take off her harness, he said, "I think you'd climb anything."

She laughed. She was not pretty, as she often thought as she looked at herself in mirrors, but she had a fresh, innocent quality that men found attractive.

Especially Inuyasha.

She undid the last clips of the harness and said, "Yeah?"

"Well…" again he took the folded paper out of his pocket. "A policeman just sent us this. It's our monastery."

"Like I couldn't tell."

Inuyasha laughed. It was just like Kagome to be a smart aleck with him. It didn't mean much to him, though, because, after all, she was first in her class before she had graduated. And he had been second.

"This is even better than the one on record." Kagome looked at Inuyasha, puzzled.

"Well, this is ours now, so…"

"Where'd he get it?"

"Huh?"

"The map, Inuyasha. Where'd the cop get it?"

"Oh. He said… an ITC worker named Totosai something had it. He said a couple brought him in, and he was confused and crazy. He died within a day." Inuyasha rolled the map up like a scroll and handed it to Kagome. "It was on him, and the couple told them what it was."

Just then, Miroku walked in. "Well, I've just seen the Professor off."

"My granddad left?"

"Yes. Just now."

"God." Briskly, she ran outside to where the plane had been called to, shaded her face from the sunlight, and waved goodbye to the plane, though she wasn't sure her grandfather had even seen.

-

"YES!" Kagome shouted. A cheer from the crowd arose.

Her arrow had touched the bull's eye. Barely, but it still counted.

It was what she did when she was trying to solve something or get over something. Archery with Miroku. Or rather, against. The crowds of undergraduates were always there, though in several posses, to watch Kagome get 'creamed', as the guys liked to call it, by Miroku. That wasn't too often anymore. Ever since Miroku had started teaching Kagome the use of the bow and arrow, Kagome had enjoyed it and picked it up immediately.

Soon enough, it became evident that Miroku was teaching Kagome so well that she was getting better than him. The girl undergraduates now like to watch Miroku get 'smooshed' by Kagome.

Smiling from the sidelines, Kouga, Inuyasha, and Kazunori had all stopped their work (or at least Kouga and Kazunori) to come and watch.

The target, a scarecrow, was being tortured from about 10, maybe 15 feet away. The target was in the middle of his face and his mouth was open, with many arrows all over his body. Nevertheless, the scarecrow looked happy, even though Miroku's arrow had hit its eye. Archery could be used for both anger management and practice.

The game would stop when someone got to twenty five, the bull's eye counting as 8, and the next ring as 5, and the next as 3, the outermost ring counting as 1. Apparently, the way they were going, it would take a while.

Miroku looked at his watch. "Ah, well. Time's up…" He held out his hand to Kagome. She shook it.

A cheer arose from the crowd yet again.

-

_Hey, look! Miroku's a history freak! He knows about every single freaking thing from history! Woo. Well. Review, please, or you'll make me mad._

_Disclaimer—I own-y thee freaky Inuyasha-y character-ys! Haha. Review! Thank you!_


	4. Rolexes

Wow. Look. I'm on my fourth chapter, and the last I checked, 24 reviews (Is that bad?)! If any of your friends are Inuyasha fans as well, please tell them that I am the greatest writer ever. Just kidding. You can tell them to read my story. But they don't have to. Yeah. Thank you!

Signed, the author,

xkumaxchanx

P.S. All these names are actual places in Japan, mostly on Honshu Island, but they are not all next to each other, or near Ishikari-gawa.

-

Then next morning, Kagome was working on her mortar samples again when her radio clicked and shouted annoyingly, "**SUSHI! SUSHI! SUSHI! GRID FOUR! LUNCH IS SERVED!"**

This was not actual lunch, but a codeword way of saying that there was a new discovery somewhere on-site. In this case, it was grid four. They all used codewords for all important transmissions, because every now and then, some officials would monitor them in secret.

Grid four was up near the monastery. Up she hung in the Fukui chapel, and wondered if she should go or not.

"Hear that, Inuyasha?"

"Yeah," Inuyasha mumbled and messed with the ropes and let her down slowly.

-

"I'll row," Inuyasha offered.

She nodded, and laid herself down in the boat, closing her eyes, and relaxing.

"Beautiful day," she said.

"Yeah." Inuyasha said, though he of course didn't mean it.

Kagome wore a t-shirt and beige khaki shorts. Again, she closed her eyes after shading them with her black sweatshirt.

"…PERVERT!" Kagome suddenly sat up and kicked Inuyasha in the stomach, sending him over the edge of the boat.

Inuyasha bobbed back up to the surface, holding onto the edge of the boat. "What, wench!"

"You were groping me! God, you're turning into Miro-…"

"Hm?" Suddenly Inuyasha was not mad, but curious.

Kagome screamed. On her thigh was a large beetle-like bug, squirming around on its back. "EWWWWWWWWWWWW! GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF..."

She said this all while swiping her hands back and forth, like she was slapping someone invisible repeatedly. Inuyasha hurled his hand at the silverfish, picking it up between his nails, and squished it.

Again Kagome kicked him, though in the face.

-

"Yeah?" Inuyasha said as he climbed up to Miroku's standing point above a large trench.

All the excitement was over near the east arch, where they had dug another trench. Work was grueling and slow nowadays because Kazunori and Miroku kept finding soldiers' remains, with battle wounds.

The trench had collapsed on the sides, and the earth fell inwards. A landslide-like dirt formation now stood in the way from continuing.

Kagome looked down to see Kazunori and Kouga in the collapsed trench. Kazunori took pictures to stitch together in the computer for 360 degree panoramas.

"Get down there, Inuyasha. You too, Kagome."

Kagome got to the ladder first and quickly climbed down. There was a strong odor of decay, and she felt the dirt under her feet compress with every small step she took. One of the skulls broke free of a small dirt mound and rolled to her feet.

She looked at it carefully, not wanting to move it. The jaws were larger than normal and jutted out at the sides, and there was a small, circular hole right behind where his ear would have been. She could picture him being alive. Screaming. Bloody. Eyes rolled back in head. An arrow in his hair.

"Don't worry about it," Kazunori said. "They're as jumbled up as they can get."

Kagome, relieved, let out a large sigh, and then continued over to Kouga after walking cautiously over the skull. Inuyasha and Miroku had dropped down the ladder moments ago, and followed after her.

"There was a battle here?" Kagome asked.

"I'm more interested in that." Miroku pointed ahead to the arch, rounded and a little bit flattened.

"Maybe 12th century…"

"I mean _that_."

It turned out he was pointing directly beneath the slight curve of the arch. The collapse of the dirt walls had left a black, three-foot-wide opening.

She looked at Miroku quizzically.

"We should get in there. Now."

"Why so quickly?"

"Rooms." Inuyasha mumbled. From the very beginning, Inuyasha had seen the black pit, and was observing it from afar.

"Yes," Kazunori said. "One room, two rooms, maybe even ten. Now it's exposed to oxygen."

-

"Okay, people," Miroku said to the undergraduates, "I want flashlights, reflectors, excavation packs, portable oxygen, filter headsets, everything, now, for Inuyasha and Kagome."

"Miroku, I don't think it's safe to go in there…"

"What? Losing your nerve?" Miroku laughed.

-

Fifteen minutes later, she was hanging in midair by the edge of the arch.

"Five feet." she held up five fingers and looked at Inuyasha. He gave her five feet of slack.

"Three more." She looked down and dropped to her hands and knees lightly.

"Everything okay?" Miroku asked.

"Yeah. I'll go in now."

She flicked on her light, turned on her radio, pulled down her headset so she was filter-breathing, and crawled slowly down the small slope.

The air had a damp, cool feel to it. The stone walls and floor gave a feeling of a small courtyard, except there were no flower arrangements. And barely any light.

Even through the filter, there was an odor that was unpleasant; it made her dizzy. No one usually bothered with masks at excavation sites, but they were required here because at that time in the fifteenth century, there was a plague that killed a third of the population through rat, coughs, sneezes, and air.

There was a loud clattering behind her, and Inuyasha slid down through the hole.

"You realize we could be buried alive?" Kagome asked, quivering as she spoke.

"So optimistic."

Inuyasha moved in, holding a large fluorescent light with reflectors. Now that they could see perfectly, the room looked ugly and bare. There was a stone sarcophagus of a knight, lid removed, to the left, and a wooden table on the right.

There was an open corridor to their left as well, ending in a stone stair case, winding up into the dirt. There were small mounds of dirt on the ground and a large one, blocking another passage straight ahead.

"Inuyasha…look." she said. She moved over to the dirt mounds on the right.

An earth-colored protrusion, brown, but the surface was sheen. Oilcloth, she thought, as she touched it with her hand.

He helped her dig. They did so carefully so the mound wouldn't collapse as well. Soon it was exposed: a rectangle roughly about two feet on the long side, covered in an oil-soaked rag.

"Documents." Inuyasha mumbled. The people above were still listening through their radios, so they had to at least picture what was in the pit.

He took it under his arm and headed toward the entrance.

"Inuyasha? I think there's more."

A shiny piece of glass protruded from the earth. Thin and perfectly clear, the edge was curved. It looked almost modern.

Kagome wiped away some excess dirt with her finger.

It was a bifocal lens.

"What?" Inuyasha asked, coming back to her.

Kagome held out the lens for him to inspect.

"Where did you find this?" he sounded concerned, almost mad.

"Right here." she pointed toward the dirt.

"Lying in the open?"

"No. Only the edge. I cleaned it off."

"How?"

"With my finger."

"You're telling me it was partly buried?" He didn't believe her.

"Hey, what is this, an interrogation?"

"Wench, just answer it."

"No, Inuyasha. It was _mostly_ buried. Everything but that edge was buried."

"Great. You shouldn't have touched it."

She put her hands on her hips. "I do, too, if I'd known you were going to respond like-…"

"Turn around."

"What?"

"_Turn around._" He turned her around by the shoulders so her back was facing him.

He held his light close to her pack and moved over the surface slowly.

"Um, are you...?"

"Shut up." When it came to site contamination, almost everyone on site were the most serious people in the world.

It took two minutes before he stopped. "The lower left pocket of your backpack is open. Did you open it?"

"No, Inuyasha."

"Then it's been open the whole time?"

"I guess so."

"Did you brush against the wall at all?"

"No." She had been careful; she didn't want the roof to collapse.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Now you check me. See if any part of my backpack is open."

She did. Nothing.

"If you could clean it with a fingertip, it was not tightly buried."

"Yeah. It was loose."

"All right. That's the explanation. Somehow."

He took several pictures of the lens, then wrapped it in bubble wrap, and handed it to Kagome. He lightened up. "Be careful."

They climbed the dirt slope together again, heading outside.

-

The undergraduates cheered, the oilskin package was handed to Kazunori, and everyone was smiling, except Kouga and Miroku. Site contamination.

-

Later that day, Inuyasha, Kagome, and Miroku sat on the opposite side of Kagome's friends at dinner.

Though Inuyasha was just meeting with them, he disliked them immediately.

The men, almost every five minutes, got up to talk on cell phones. The women both were publicists in the same PR firm; they all tended to treat academics retarded. Surprisingly, they were somewhat pleasant.

Inuyasha would have like them more if they didn't ask the usual questions: _What's so special about that site? How do you know where to dig? How do you know what you're looking for? How deep do you dig and when do you stop?_

These questions went on and on.

-

"the point is that it's an accident that this town existed at all." Kagome said.

"It's nice here." One of the women said.

Suddenly both the men flipped closed their cell phones, sat down, and put their phones away.

"What happened?" Kagome asked.

"Market closed."

"So," the other man said, "You were talking about why Fukui is so special."

"We were discussing that it's never been excavated." Miroku continued. "But it's important to us because it's a typical walled town."

"This is when? The Dark Ages?"

"No. The High Middle Ages."

"Not as high as I'm going to be," the man said, burped, and put his beer bottle down roughly on the table. "So what came before that? The Low Middle Ages?"

"Yes."

"Hey! Right the first time!"

-

"Around 40 BC, Japan had been ruled by China, and what were left of the Japanese warriors still warred with the Chinese, individually in villages. All across Japan, Chinese soldiers trooped around and built roads, and maintained law and order. Much later, population fell, trade died, and villages shrank. All because of barbarians from the north western part of China. Japan became its own country, eventually. That was the Low Middle Ages." Miroku recited. "Soon, the feudal system was developed. Aristocrats, soldiers, and rulers at the top, then farmers, and at the bottom, slaves. Soon Japan thrived again, with population and trade. This was the High Middle Ages."

"If it was so good, then why did everyone build more defenses?" One of the men asked.

"Because of the Warring States Era."

"Was it a religious war?"

"No. It was about sovereignty. China owned a small part of Japan still." Kagome answered.

"What- are you telling me China used to own part of Japan?"

Inuyasha, Kagome, and Miroku sighed.

There was a term Miroku used for these people- temporal provincials. Ignorant of the past, tangled up in the present. Inuyasha's word for it: assholes.

If these two stockbrokers didn't know that, they didn't know where they had originated. As Professor Higurashi said, you don't know anything if you don't know history. You were a leaf that didn't know what a tree was.

-

When one of the men took off his heavy Rolex watch and began to twirl it around his finger, Inuyasha could stand it no more. He stood up and mumbled something about checking the analysis at the site of the oilcloth-covered box and the bifocal lens.

All along the street, he saw only couples, arm in arm, the woman resting her head on the man's shoulder. He rolled his eyes and said to himself, 'feh'.

Idiot.

What kind of a person liked Rolexes?

..-..

Me. Just kidding. I don't like Rolexes. Please please please please review on all the chapters if you haven't. You don't have to, though.

All the history on this (or most) is made up. Except for the Warring States Era. Yeah... Well I'll start on my fifth chappie soon...

Review!

Signed,

xkumaxchanx.


	5. Help?

**FREEDOM! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! **My sister doesn't have to read my chapters-on-paper because she did my outlines only to chapter five. evil laugh **MWAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!**

Ahem.

Hopefully you noticed that I have started titling my chapters. I urged myself to do it, but I don't know why...

Well, on with the story already!

Chapter 5: ...Help?

* * *

"So this is modern?" Inuyasha asked.

"Well, just look." Kouga said, and motioned to the microscope. The lens under the microscope was lightly spotted with white circles. Like bacteria.

"Left edge."

"It's rock varnish?"

Rock varnish, the term for the patina of bacteria and mold that grew on the undersides of pebbles and rocks, was organic because it could easily be dated, but it didn't grow quickly.

"You can't get a decent date from this amount, though. Look at it. It's tiny."

"That was the exposed edge, though, right?"

"Yeah..."

"So it's old. That's good. It's not site contamination."

"But it looks sharply done."

"Doesn't mean it's new." Inuyasha took his radio out of its holder on his jeans. "Miroku, I'll meet you at katana grounds."

With a wave to Kouga, he was off.

Inuyasha was intent to win today. He looked at the rack of the three katanas they had:

A black-sheathed one, scrappy handle, gold-hilt lining, and slightly curved.

A mahogany-sheathed sword, criss-cross patterned handle, and a decorative string at the end of its leather grip.

And finally, a white-sheathed one, with a red handle. Inuyasha called it defective because its blade was unusually heavy.

He chose the black-sheathed one. It was his favorite and the handle was frayed because of his frequent use of it.

He watched as Miroku chose: how he picked up the sword, held the grip firmly, and swung it a bit, then measured its length with his eyes slowly. To Inuyasha, this was stupid, and completely useless. Every time, Miroku picked a different one of the two left.

Miroku picked up the mahogany one and pulled it by half a foot out of its sheath.

The sunlight bounced off its surface and hit his eyes. He unsheathed it all the way. He liked his swords clean.

Inuyasha stared at him and said, "Hey, Miroku! Hurry up! We don't have all day! We still have to go to that dinner arrangement again!"

Miroku nodded and stood at the ready, his katana out in front of him.

Now they were all ready to go. Inuyasha unsheathed his blade as well, and stood upright, his katana's edge slanted upwards.

"You go, guys!" Kagome shouted. She had just arrived.

Inuyasha stared at her and made a weird sort of despising sort of pout that expressed some kind of weird language that said she wasn't rooting for him.

But she was! Sort of. Halfway. Okay, maybe a third.

Miroku smiled and took a step forward as if reminding Inuyasha of their business. Inuyasha nodded and lunged at Miroku, swinging his katana in a horizontal hit towards his lower right abdomen.

Miroku took a step back and blocked it with what seemed like an uncomfortable position: left elbow up near his mouth, wrist turned outwards, katanas slanted downwards, and knees bent in a form of support. He pushed Inuyasha off backwards and their katanas made sharp ringing sounds. Though they were rough with each other when using their katanas, Inuyasha and Miroku both knew that they were dull and could not give as much as a small cut or bruise.

Miroku made a professional-looking sidestep and brandished his katana like a whip at Inuyasha's stomach, hitting him at full force on one of the two flat sides.

Inuyasha clutched his stomach, stepped back, and straightened up, only to see Miroku lunging towards him again, and aiming for his left arm. He made a diagonal move backwards, to the right, and blocked it, holding his hand against the flat edge of the katana.

They stood there resisting each other, pushing their katanas against the other's katana, until Inuyasha gathered up all his strength, pushed Miroku off backwards, and hit him in the way Miroku had done to him: a horizontal hit on the flat side of his katana to his stomach, then another to his right side, on what would be the usually sharp part of his sword.

"Okay, okay... I surrender." Miroku held his side, down on the ground, head hanging. It didn't really seem like he was hurt, though.

Inuyasha stepped backwards and relaxed, letting his katana fall to his side. He looked at Miroku's hand which, when he had fallen to the ground, had let go of the "defective" blade and now supported his weight. The other clutched and massaged his side.

But it didn't seem like he was...

At that moment, Inuyasha looked just in time to see Miroku's hand grasping his katana, and tried to swipe behind his leg, at the back of his knee joint, but Inuyasha had already moved. Miroku's katana barely grazed his leg, leaving an open slit in his baggy jeans but nothing more.

"Heh. Idiot." Inuyasha brought his sword back up, at the ready.

A trick. Miroku wasn't good enough to pull it off entirely.

Miroku laughed and got up. "You're getting better, Inuyasha. More aware. That's good."

"Feh." was all he said, and started running towards Miroku, sword pointed backwards on his right side. He aimed his sword high, hear his head, which Miroku blocked, and then brought his leg up and kicked Miroku's back knee joint. (The one I talked about earlier).

Miroku's knees buckled, sending him into a position where for and instant his back was tilted and his knees were bent. In that moment, Inuyasha stepped forward, hit Miroku with a vertical swipe to the stomach, which caused him to fall, and then turned and stepped back; ending up on Miroku's other side. He then stepped forward again, touching the pointed tip of his sword to the back of Miroku's neck.

As soon as it touched him, Miroku flinched. Inuyasha was silently panting, and Miroku was quiet, too, until Miroku looked up at Inuyasha and said," Okay. You win."

"This village was like the-..."

Kagome stopped when her radio crackled and Kouga came on. "Kagome? Get your asses over here. Now." He then mumbled something that sounded like'...you'll be sorry if...'

But Kouga never swore.

Kagome decided that it was urgent.

"Guys, I'm really sorry, so maybe some other time, we can get together again..."

Inuyasha scoffed. It was obviously no matter to them; they looked relieved.

Kagome shot a fierce look at him and got up.

"If this is a trick, it's not funny." Kouga said in somewhat of a snarl. He picked up a paper from his desk and threw it at Inuyasha.

He unfolded it. His eyes grew wide. He stared at Kouga quizzically. "Where...did you...?"

"Find it?" Kouga filled in the rest of his sentence.

Kagome went over and grabbed it from Inuyasha, and inspected it for a while.

"Kouga...This is my grandpa's writing."

Kouga had been yelling at Inuyasha for accusing him of carelessness and he was also blaming Inuyasha for playing a trick on him. But he stopped short when he heard Kagome.

"What?" He came over to Kagome's side just as Miroku did, and soon Inuyasha was there too, looking over Kagome's shoulder at the paper that said 'HELP ME. 4/7/1557.'

"It's my grandpa's writing," she said softly again, in a miniscule and scared voice.

"Kagome, there's no possible way-..." Miroku started.

"We'll run tests, Kagome." Inuyasha said, cutting Miroku off. "We'll see if it's the Professor's. If it is, we'll call ITC."

Kagome turned and thanked Inuyasha with a look of gratitude.

In the meantime, while Inuyasha and Miroku checked the paper, Kouga explained to Kagome that he had found the sheet in his new bundle of documents designatedG4-3, standing for grid four bundle three. In the pile, he said he had come across this one paper in completely present-day kanji, the only form of Japanese writing they used at Fukui. For example, the team at their neighboring site, Hamamatsu, used romaji as well as kanji, because most supervisors that came to inspect their sites were from ITC's American business, though Kikyou visited sometimes. But the Fukui team also knew English.

Kouga had just finished explaining this to Kagome when the phone rang. Kagome jumped for it, out of her seat. You could tell she was nervous; she bit all her nails down to stumps.

"Yes?" she was almost sweating.

"This is ITC's vice president. May I speak to your supervisor?"

"Um..." She looked over to Miroku and pointed at him. "Yes... hold on."

She tilted her head to the side and handed Miroku the phone, mouthing 'ITC'. He was the most experienced, and if her grandfather was ever gone, he was the boss.

"Yes?"

"Moshi moshi... Miroku-sama, ne?"

"Hai. Nandesuka?"

"Gomen," he heard into the background, somewhat naggingly and annoyed. Two people were quarreling, and that person had just given in.

"Nigiru, douzo. Baka! Shizukana heya ni shitehoshii!" she turned back to the phone. "Gomen ne, Miroku-sama,"

Then in plain English:

"We've already sent ahead the plane. Don't ask any questions. It's urgent. We know where the professor is."

And she hung up.

So did Miroku.

"Get your passports." Miroku said, picking through his pocket for his car keys.

"We going somewhere?" Inuyasha asked.

"It's about the professor." he went outside, got in his car, and started driving home to get his passport.

What about the professor?

Inuyasha's sleek black hair flowed in the ripples of air the plane sent down as it lowered expertly.

As soon as it landed, Sesshoumaru stepped out. He and Inuyasha exchanged a hateful stare that lasted for at least ten seconds, during which Sesshoumaru spoke.

"There's no time for questions." he said in his calm voice (mevein pop). We will all be making you take sedatives, and have you get used to their language, so put these on once you get inside." He handed each one of the team a pair of headphones and eye masks as they got on the plane, and there were little blue couches-one per person.

Everyone sat down and took their sedatives.

Everyone except Kouga.

He looked at Sesshoumaru queerly, as if wondering whether or not to trust him.

Sesshoumaru moved his rolling swivel chair over to Kagome's side, where the sedative had put her, and well as Inuyasha and Miroku into unconsciousness, with their eye masks on.

"Choice of weapon? Katana, longbow, or zanbatou." Sesshoumaru asked.

"Longbow," Kagome said, and the built in mike in the headphones registered, started clicking, and simulated a picture in Kagome's mind even though she was sleeping. It was a training process.

Sesshoumaru repeated this process to both Inuyasha and Miroku. Miroku picked a zanbatou, and Inuyasha picked a katana.

The plane lifted off the ground and the three slept soundly.

Kouga asked, "What is it doing? Why do they have to get accustomed to a language? Why do the have to pick a _weapon_?" Then, "...does Mr. Ishizaki have speech impairment?"

Sesshoumaru answered, "It's a simulation. The quality of the sound in the headphones makes it seem like a background. So it works like an alarm clock. You're sleeping, but you can hear it nevertheless."

"Hm."

"Except you pick up whatever skill we're aiming for, almost immediately- in your sleep. It's not complicated. You'll see what's complicated later."

Wow. I have a LOT for this footnote. At least compared to the usual sentence.

1. The bifocal lens was Professor Higurashi's. You'll understand this more when I get into chapters 6 & 7.

2. Conversation between Miroku and Kikyou...

Kikyou: Moshi moshi... Miroku-sama, ne?

Hello...this is Miroku, yes?"

Miroku: Hai. Nandesuka?

Yes. What (is it)?

Worker-in-background: Gomen.

Sorry. (I supposed that the worker and Naraku were quarreling about what they are going to do to Inu-tachi...)

Kikyou: Nigiru, douzo. Baka! Shizukana heya ni shitehoshii! Gomen ne, Miroku-sama.

Hold, please (though not correct grammar). Idiot! (Literally, this next part means...) I want a quiet room. (Also "I want it quiet in here.") Sorry, Miroku.

3. Some more Japanese used above...

Inu-tachi Inuyasha & gang. I will probably be using this frequently.

...-sama a respectful suffix you can add to the end of any name.

4. Weapons...

a. katana. I was asked what this meant before. A katana is a _sword_.

b. zanbatou. A long, sticklike think. Kind of like what would be kendo in Korea/Japan (You might know if you're Korean like me, and watch all these weird Korean dramas. twitch). It's what Miroku's staff looks like in the anime, usually with no fancy stuff at the end.

c. longbow. Please don't tell me you don't know what this is... A bow and arrow, duh.

I know this chapter might have been confusing, but live with it. This is one of the most important chapters, and if you must, reread the parts you didn't understand.

P.S. Kouga didn't take the sedatives because he didn't trust Sesshoumaru. He thought that the sedatives were cyanide. Just kidding.

P.S.S. I am NOT Japanese.

DISclaimer: DIS Dumb Inchworm Snot. This is my original stupidity, but you can use it if you must, in whatever. Just relate back to me. I don't own Inuyasha, because if I did he would have a collar ands if he had a collar he would have a leash and if he had a leash he would be walked every day and if he were walked every day he'd go crazy, and...

Wait. What were we talking about?

Well, as I said before, you'll understand this more when I write the other chapters, so be patient! My chapter titles are currently pending and I'm on chapter 6. Sorry THIS chapter took so long. It's because I had so many tests and crap at school. Guess what? My teacher is a child abuser! She hit one of my classmates! GASP Haha... Wow. I'm getting off track Well, review this chapter please; all reviews-even flames- make me feel good.

xkumaxchanx


	6. If Ya Can't Beat Them, Jump a Cliff

Well, here's chapter six, with the funniest/weird title I could think of: **If ya can't beat 'em... jump a cliff**

Now on with the story, which I sort of like, but first...

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own the Inuyasha characters. Nor the Timeline characters. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Michael Crichton.

**Chapter 6: If ya can't beat 'em... jump a cliff**

----

"Inuyasha...Inuyasha, we're here," Kagome whispered, removing the headphones from Inuyasha's head.

Everyone had gotten off the plane, but Inuyasha had fallen asleep so deeply he had not noticed that Sesshoumaru had taken everyone but Kagome off.

"Nnh. Coming." he got up, stretching, and followed Kagome out of the cabin.

-----

"Welcome..." Sesshoumaru looked up at a camera and two white doors in front of them slid open with a hiss. "...to ITC."

The room had a wispy, mysterious effect which made them feel like there was no end to it.

Kouga perched one arm atop the other on the side railings, watching what was happening on the floor below.

He watched a woman. She was dressed finely, but... He looked closer. In old-styled clothing. She wore a robe decorated with what looked like outlined pentagons and feather shapes. Then another robe, and another, and another, and...

"Kouga!" Miroku said from the other end of the hall.

"Mm?" he turned.

"Getting carried away?"

"Yeah..."

Miroku left through another set of doors, expecting Kouga to follow. But Kouga watched a bit longer.

His eyes followed as the woman climbed up a small pair of stairs, until the metal shutters closed around her and blocked her from view.

He made to leave, but then looked back as a scream-like whirring noise filled the room. Then it stopped.

The shutters hissed and creaked as they resumed their positions.

The woman was gone.

Kouga rubbed his eyes, wondering if he had gone off hallucinating.

"Kouga! Get your ass over here." Inuyasha said, sticking his head around the corner impatiently.

"That woman..."

"Yeah, yeah... Come on. We don't have all day."

-----

Kagome, Inuyasha, Kouga, and Miroku had been seated for a while now in bare conference room when Naraku Ishizaki walked into the room.

With no particular greetings, he dove right in: "Ojikan wo saite itadaite arigatou gozaimasu. (A/N: Thank you for taking the time to see me.) I told you I needed your help. And I do. You know that the Professor came here to confront us. Well, he did, and now he is no longer in this world. He is years in the past, about 500 years ago, in the Sengoku Jidai of a parallel world."

Everyone except Kouga cringed in confusion.

Ishizaki sighed.

-----

"You're saying we're the first _ever_ to do this? To step into the world?"

"And the Professor before you, of course." Naraku replied.

Kagome sighed, and everyone held looks of deep thought and confusion. Excepting Miroku.

He smiled. Everyone else glared at him edgily.

"Follow Sesshoumaru here," Naraku said, and pointed for Sesshoumaru to go to the door labeled Step 1: Prepack.

"You first," Sesshoumaru looked at Miroku, motioning for him to get into the room.

"You said that's a..."

"High-powered MRI."

_Looks like a coffin_, Miroku thought.

Sensing his hesitation, Sesshoumaru said, "It's harmless, like an MRI. Just remove your clothing and an automated recording will talk you through it. Do exactly as it says. We'll be next door."

-----

"Calibrating. Do not move," the voice said soothingly. "Calibration is complete. Look straight ahead. Lasers polarizing xenon gas. Five seconds."

A bright blue color increased around him as the voice said, "Take a deep breath...now!"

The color around him in the "coffin" reduced to white. Then everything was silent. "Scan complete. Thank you."

-----

Everyone except Kouga had been scanned when Kagome asked, "What was all that for?"

"It helps us to transport you faster because the information about you has already been put into the machine with the scanning. Like when you are downloading a file, you can open it up to your computer so that when you save it, download time is fast."

Down below, under the balcony-like hallway, Kikyou said, "Kagura!"

The woman Kouga had seen disappear earlier was just now getting out of the same machine, and she looked up to see Kikyou coming down the stairs to the transit floor. Higurashi wa doko desuka?" (A/N: Where's Higurashi?)

"Tooku ni... Watashi no suisoku." she shrugged, and then caught sight of Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha, Kagome, Miroku, and Kouga for t6he first time. "Ah. They're to be saving the Professor?" (A/N: My guess... far away.)

Sesshoumaru nodded and said to Kagura, "Wait here. Where's Hakudoushi?"

"Coming."

With that, Sesshoumaru led them to a room back down the hall.

-----

He reached into a closet and pulled out what appeared to be olden-day clothing.

"See if these will fit." He gave Kagome, Inuyasha, and Miroku theirs. Just as he was about to give Kouga his, Kouga said:

"I'm not going."

Miroku had expected it, watching him shift uneasily in his chair the whole time they had were waiting for Naraku.

"I'm sorry, but this isn't my affair. I was only on the Professor's team because I was referred by Inuyasha to the Professor to be a replacement for their old analyst. And I'm not even a historian. I'm a scientist. It might not even be safe."

"The machines?"

"No, the place, 1457. The Sengoku Jidai period of Japan."

Miroku nodded, but said nothing.

Sesshoumaru said, "This is an earpiece that allows you to speak to each other when you are separated. Just tap it and it turns on or off. It also translates anything that it picks up from the language, which might be helpful in some cases. Just come over here to the desk when you're done changing and sit on it for them..." Sesshoumaru pointed to some employees, "...to insert it."

Everyone then took off to the changing rooms.

When they all emerged, they looked different- older, maybe even more mature-looking.

Miroku's was a dark purple robe that had a one-shouldered feature to partly cover the black one he had under it. The other end of the purple robe went under his arm, to connect at his left shoulder with a bow.

Kagome's appeared to be a three-or-four parted one; it was a white robe with one slit for each sleeve which revealed another white sleeved robe under it. Those two, one atop the other, acted like shirts, and were tucked into a long, flowing, red skirt that was a little bit above her waist, and at her foot was another hint of white: another skirt-layer. (A/N: One cannot fathom the freaky little stitches of Inuyasha's outfit correctly, but this is my attempt) Inuyasha's was all red, in the same fashion as Kagome's only instead of a skirt; it was two baggy pant legs, tied at his waist with another bow. His shirt under the haori was a sort of milky yellow-white. His outfit, for reasons unknown, had a black string from one shoulder down to his waist on the opposite side, and right next to where it rested, a slit showed the same milky white color on both sides.

In truth, they wee confused. But, all in all, they _had_ gotten them on correctly. It saved them humiliation.

"Anything else?"

"Follow me." Sesshoumaru motioned in the direction they had come.

-----

The transit room below was cold and almost completely silent. Four cages linked together stood behind shutters, and another stood alone. They would be transported in those.

Kagome was tense, and Miroku could sense it.

"If you stay with me, I will protect you." Though Miroku was carefree and he treated this trip like a vacation, he was being serious- for almost the first time in his life.

"Here we go." Kikyou said, walking past the three of them and in turn, handing each a white ceramic piece, about 3 centimeters square. "The button at the bottom calls the machines back. You must have 6 feet on all sides. "Ah. Hakudoushi. Your uncle has assigned you this job as well as Kagura?"

A young boy, about the age of 15, walked into the room, saying nothing, with Naraku at his side.

"Yes, I did," Naraku answered.

He came up and handed each of them a can and a bunch of small sacks with numbers on them.

"They'll help you in any dangerous situation. This one-powder. If it gets on something, moisture lights it to fire. The cans are sprayed in one's face to temporarily knock them out and cause them to lose memory.

"So, you know now that the Professor has most likely assumed a job in the Sengoku Jidai. You may have to go search around for him a bit." He motioned towards the machines. "I look forward to your return."

Kagome turned to Kouga.

"Don't worry, Kouga. We'll be back soon."

She hugged him briefly, and then turned back to Inuyasha and Miroku, who both waved in goodbye and entered the cages, which were large enough so that they could stand.

"Infrared clearance," the voice said.

_This is it..._ Inuyasha thought.

"Stand still- eyes open-deep breath- hold it- _now_!"

Silence. Darkness. Nothing.

-----

He was standing in sunlight, the air warm and fresh on his face with no smog or industrial sites to interfere with the pure pleasure he felt.

Inuyasha recognized it immediately: the town and castle of Fukui. And it wasn't a ruin. Its homes were complete and standing, as was the castle itself.

He was here.

The lady called Kagura hopped lightly out of the machine.

"Ohh..." Kagome said, seeing Fukui.

Miroku smiled, and Kagura said, "Beautiful isn't it?"

"Amazing..." he replied.

As Kagome's eyes traveled the walkway down from the forest and into the town, Miroku sighed like a lover. Behind her, Kagura said sternly, "Hakudoushi! What do you think you're doing?"

Hakudoushi had stretched his robe out slightly to reveal a holstered pistol and two grenades with small screens on them.

"If we're going into the world, I'm going to be ready."

"No, you're not going in with those. You know that's not allowed. Sesshoumaru would never permit our weapons-"she pointed at the grenades, "-to be taken into their world!"

"But he's not here right-"

He was interrupted by a young boy wearing a young boy, who wore a long, dragging robe and an overcoat, the hood of it pulled just above his eyes, running into the clearing, saying, "Hide! Hide! For God's sake, hide!"

Everyone held quizzical faces.

He shoved Kagome hard, pushing her down the sloped path down the path. She was about to get up when she heard the same, monotonous rumbling noise.

Horses. Riding full gallop in her direction.

Kagura and Hakudoushi were still in the clearing when the boy fled.

The black rider leaned over handily in his seat and swung his katana viciously at Kagura as he rode past. The head dropped down with a soft thump on the moss. Hakudoushi, covered helplessly in Kagura's shining blood, swore loudly as he ran farther backwards into the woods. One rider stopped his horse, drawing his bow and aiming.

The arrow struck Hakudoushi square in his arm as he reached for his grenade and turned. Another struck him full in his stomach. He clutched at his stomach, feeling the blood and where the arrow had pierced him, felt his own insides. There was a large flash of light as his machine took off and blinded the men.

He was gone.

The riders turned to go, and Inuyasha and Miroku stayed hidden in the brush.

_Kagome._

The boy had pushed Kagome toward the pathway. Obviously, Miroku was thinking about it too, because he stood up and made his way forcefully out of the bush. "I'll go look for Kagome. See how she is."

Inuyasha only nodded, staring at the headless torso of Kagura. A head wasn't too big without a body.

-----

"Stand by. Coming in..." the technician said.

Sesshoumaru looked at the platform. His eyes grew wide. "That boy is _nothing_ but trouble."

His gun in one hand, his other clenched something tightly in the other hand, resting on his stomach. Obviously dead, Sesshoumaru did not bother to do anything to the pale body of Naraku's nephew.

"What's that?" Kouga asked, as the item he had held rolled out with a thump out onto the platform. "It almost looks like a gre-"

The explosion sent huge flashes of light in the transit room, filling it with pale smoke that intoxicated all the workers.

"It's the cells." Sesshoumaru said. "They've leaked acid. Don't touch it." The floor began hissing and steaming uncontrollably.

"There are no more machines now, so does that mean...?"

"Yes. I'm afraid they're on their own."

-----

"Pssst."

Inuyasha turned, seeing the boy from earlier. Inuyasha shot him an accusing look, as if saying, _what do you want **now?**_

The boy said nothing, but pointed vigorously at the head of Kagura.

-----

Kagome sat on a tree stump, her head bleeding.

Miroku approached her slowly. "Are you hurt?"

He moved her hair around and saw a three-inch cut along the scalp.

"What's happened?"

"They're dead. Inuyasha is waiting for us back there."

They walked around the final bend of the pathway.

Inuyasha was gone.

-----

"Inuyasha."

Miroku. The device they had put in their ears was finally at good use.

"Where are you?"

"I'm running... for the town..."

He looked up at the boy in the tree, and climbed up with little difficulty.

Horses. Damn it.

"Can't talk." With that, static infiltrated Miroku and Kagome's earpieces.

-----

"Lord! My lord, the tree! They are in the tree!" the "lord" turned and looked at the tree, while his men all pointed at the muddy footprints Inuyasha had made on the trunk. By then, they had moved out onto the outer and lower branches of the tree, so they could reach the ground and escape.

"There!" they charged, and the boy ran furiously, Inuyasha close behind.

"Can you swim?"

"Yeah." Of course he could. But that wasn't one of the things on his mind, because right now, they were running out toward a clearing.

Toward the cliff.

The land sloped downward, gently, at first, and then steeply. Without hesitation, the boy leapt.

Glancing back, he saw the men charging toward him.

_No choice._

He turned and ran, thrusting off the cliff with all his might, Ishikari-gawa shimmering below.

-----------------------------------------------

Well. A true cliffhanger. This chapter, by far, took the lo9ngest for me to write up because I wasn't pleased at how many reviews I had received. In the first week, only my sister had reviewed. (Or something of the like.) Then, about 2-3 weeks later, the motherload came in. So by then I was halfway through the chapter. And now I finished it! Yay! (Right now I was laughing so hard at what my friend said on the phone that I spit out some tofu.) ) Now go read my sister's fanfictions. Again, her screen-name: alohaturtle Review please!

xkumaxchanx

Chapter 7: The boy that helped Inuyasha will turn out to be more important than you think. And he kind of isn't a... Well. Nevermind. Review! Thank you!


	7. Time likes messing with us

Chapter 7 Author's Note A.k.a. JTTY... (Just To Tell You)

Arrgh. I'm taking my standardized testing right now. Hold on...

"Number 15: Julio ate dinner at a restaurant. He wants to leave a 20 percenttip for the waitress. If Julio's dinner cost $15.00, how much should he leave for the tip?"

A $2.00

B $2.50

C $3.00

D $3.50

You do the math. Rat-boy's breath is so intoxicating. And he keeps yawning. (He sits off to my right, and you get a good view of his mole-rat profile...) I want to measure how many inches his teeth stick out...) Well, on with the story!

Chapter 7: Time flies. Time stops. Time likes messing with us. --- What I intended title to be. Oh well.

* * *

With that, Inuyasha got into a true diving position, with his hands stretched out above his head. He heard the shouts of the soldiers at the cliff, but ignored them. He heard one voice apart from them in the device in his ear: "Inuyasha..."

_Kagome._

He hit the water with a splash and the current pulled him toward the river's edge, sending him crashing into a rock. His elbows scratched from the impact, a single layer of skin held on desperately to his elbow by something like two centimeters. Under, he was bleeding a clear tinge at first, then a bold red came on center-stage and they mixed. To clean it in the easiest way, he rolled up his sleeve higher, cupped his hand, placed it in the river, and splashed water onto the scratch. He scrambled up on the top of the rock and lay there, breathless, as his life seemed to drain from him through his blood.

----------

"Grandpa!" Kagome said, her voice hushed, but still with every ounce of worry. She and Miroku had been caught by the soldiers, and to Miroku's delight, not killed. They were being handled roughly by the men, who were talking amongst themselves: "More spies?"

"They think I'm a spy," Higurashi said. "And also a man who can see the future."

"But..." Kagome said.

"Is it just the two of you?"

"Inuyasha came too, but Kouga stayed behind."

They walked on in silence, the sound of horses' hooves plodding in the mud with an uneven beat.

"Where are we headed?" Miroku asked.

"The castle. Ling Sheng," Higurashi said.

**33:12:51**

"Up, filth. Up, I say!"

_Ech. Damned soldiers. Chinese ones, too. _Inuyasha thought.

Inuyasha grunted as the soldiers pulled him off the rock, now somewhat blood-soaked.

"Spy, yes?" _The earpiece comes in handy. I think I'll keep it in a while._

"Yes!" the soldiers roared.

Inuyasha shook his head out, not particularly in response to their question, but because he was dizzy.

"Why do you not comprehend?"

Inuyasha glared at the soldiers blankly.

"Yes, spy. He is a spy."

"The lord requests all of them to be in one group."

Inuyasha perked up at the phrase "all of them." Perhaps Miroku and Kagome had found the Professor. But had theybeen caught already?

--

Inuyasha struggled to get out of the grip of the one burly soldier, the one that seemed to find Inuyasha sickening. Kagome, Miroku, and the Professor were not far, but at least now he had sight of them.

It relieved Inuyasha to know that they had not died trying to find him.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome shouted, seeing him for the first time. She then yelled at the soldier, "Let go of me", struggling. Briskly she ran to Inuyasha and hugged not him, but moreof his arm.

It was brief, but it was hard.

"We thought you were dead!"

"You, filth," Another soldier grabbed her.

They marched through the village, ignoring the prolonged stares of the Chinese men and women. Stumbling up a hill to the castle of Ling Sheng, Inuyasha looked for the boy who had helped him earlier.

Peering a little bit behind them, Inuyasha saw that "he," in fact, was a she.

--

"If you run again, we will kill you. Cremated, we will spread your ashes to be trampled by our men and yours on the battlefield."

She spat at him. "I do not fear death. When I escape, Onigumo, your ashes will be spread first, your name overly famous in every Japanese man's head and tongue. Onigumo: the traitor, the spy. And to thing that the lord my father trusted you," She scoffed defiantly.

By this point, Onigumo was fuming, his face red with fury and eyes intent on killing the girl. Instead, he slapped her on the cheek. "My Lady Sango, know your place."

--

"Lord Kagewaki! Higurashi and spies alike, as you requested!"

"Very good,"

They were being brought to the feet of the Lord Kagewaki, one who had been traitor to the Japanese as well. He, eventually, worked his way up, taking Onigumo with him, to become the lord of the village. Onigumo was his right-hand man and general.

"I am told that you can see the future, Higurashi," he said, speaking fluently in Japanese.

"No man can,"

"Oh? But, already, after two days of staying at the monastery, you have gained your position as magister. Is this word not true?"

"…You called me for battle counsel, not interrogation,"

"True, true. But you and these," he motioned toward the other three, "are spies, nonetheless. I should not trust your word at all.

He sighed. "Now, magister. You are wise, and I need much wisdom in this war. You have heard of Eien no Honoo?"

"Yes, lord."

"You can make it?"  
"With help and all the materials, yes. These are my assistants. But I will need yours as well."

"Good."

"My lord! Onigumo-sama and the Lady Sango of Fukui!

Onigumo, at that moment, came in with the struggling girl.

"She's the one that was in the clearing in the woods earlier," Inuyasha whispered to Kagome. "Sango-hime."

Kagome's eyes grew wide in admiration; Miroku's even larger.

Kagome turned to look at Miroku after he had sighed. She tilted her head in question. _Geez… He likes her already? Will any woman do just fine?_

She scoffed at his stupidity and turned her attention back to Lord Kagewaki.

Onigumo, who had handed Sango to the nearest soldier, came up to the lord and whispered something in his ear. The lord smirked and nodded his head then mumbled something like "let's see how they do".

"Soldier!"

"Yes?"

"Take Higurashi to the prison. Make sure he is guarded well. We will take him out later at the correct time.

"As for you," he said, pointing to the soldier holding Sango, "Keep the girl here with me, and then take her out to the arena. After it's finished, take them all to the prison. After our discussion, she will definitely not try to run again. Higurashi's _assistants_ here, we will have some fun with them. See how well they can brandish a sword."

The soldier left the Professor, who had given up on struggling.

Sango herself tried to get out of the soldier's grasp, her long, once elegant-flowing robes in bad shape; their ends frayed and muddy. Though her hair was very neatly tied up in a high ponytail, it seemed to fit her rage perfectly.

Inuyasha waited impatiently as Onigumo came towards them slowly, threateningly, removing one gloved finger at a time, in exact time with his heavy, plodding steps.

After each of his fingers on one hand had been uncovered, he held both gloves in one hand and reached for his blade. He unsheathed it swiftly and pointed it at Inuyasha's face dramatically.

"I do not believe you have enough courage to face me one-on-one, with only a second. If you escape with your life, your title of spy will be erased." He looked at Kagome and Miroku. "As will yours. Otherwise, you will not be killed, but labeled a spy, and the title will bring disgrace to your kind."

"He lowered his sword slowly, looking straight at Inuyasha, as if looking for his reaction in the bold hue of his eyes.

_No,_ Miroku thought. _We won't survive this._

Onigumo's sword dropped at Inuyasha's feet and clanged, echoing in the silence of the room.

_Holy..._ Inuyasha thought, _He's challenging me!_

Would he stand still-decline? Or pick it up and point it to Onigumo's turned back in acceptance? Onigumo was waiting for him to leave it and be humbled, he knew… So…

He bent down, picked up the sword by the blade-side, and tapped Onigumo's shoulder with the handle casually.

"You dropped this."

--

_"Oi, Miroku! Look at this katana!" Inuyasha held up a blade, sheathed with ivory. Next to where it had been buried lay the body of a man, who was no doubt royalty, for weapons were buried with lords. But they would leave it up to Kouga to dig him up. "It's nice-looking, huh? Not too scratched up, either."_

_Miroku came over to Inuyasha's dig area, and crouched to admire the craftwork._

_"There's two more on this guy." He worked with a brush, uncovering the sheath, then the hilt, of both katanas._

_Miroku was gaping, still, at the sword in his hand. Ever since he had gotten his katana lessons, he had admired all swords. Then and therehe decided to get someone to make replicas._

_--_

"Sirs, choose your jian." A young boy pointed Inuyasha and Miroku to the rack of the different swords.

Miroku gaped as his eyes fell on one sword in particular. "Inuyasha, this is it! This is the sword, the one we uncovered at home… This... Boy- to whom does this belong?"

"We believe they were robbed from Fukui's lord…" the Chinese boy stumbled with Japanese.

"So… if you have that one…That must mean…" Inuyasha searched the rack, and picked up a specific sword he recognized. "…that they have mine," He looked at the katana he held in his hand, the one he called his own at home, and smiled.

--

"Be careful, out there, guys," Kagome said, rising from her waiting crouch on the dirt.

Inuyasha was determined to win. He smiled at Kagome. "Don't worry. We'll be out of here with your grandfather soon."

It was hard for Kagome not to smile back at Inuyasha and Miroku. Ever since they had been reunited, she had noticed that Inuyasha had had a better level of morale.

A cheer from the crowd pulled Inuyasha away from their moment, but it was Sango, as well, coming into the tent, that made Inuyasha blush, from the fact that he was smiling at Kagome, and bow.

Acting as if it were comforting, he said, "Worry about yourselves."

--

Onigumo was announcing the consequences to the crowds, who were still filing into the arena's seats.

"Now, man," he spoke to Inuyasha, "Who will be your second?"

"I am the second," Inuyasha said, "and this is my first,"

The slits at the waist of Inuyasha's pants proved to be useful as he tucked the sword through the thin binding strip of cloth through the open slit.

Onigumo mouthed, _Coward_, and Inuyasha smiled back devilishly. With that, he turned to become a silent spectator behind the fencing.

Spectator or not, Inuyasha didn't want to watch. Miroku was a good swordsman, all right, but people in this time were bred for battle, especially because there were demons lurking around any possible corner. Onigumo, obviously, was a general for a reason.

He stood, gripping the sword's sheath, and closed his eyes.

_"Um, sir… Tessaiga, sir..."_

He opened his eyes, shaking away the thought, as the clang of katanas signaled the start of the fight.

Both were in good shape for start, but Onigumo seemed to be blocking all of Miroku's hits with incredible ease.

At one point Miroku came out of a lock, and, sporting a determined face, turned and swiftly swiped at Onigumo's neck, leaving a faint line of blood.

Yet Onigumo seemed oblivious.

Thinking quickly, he came forward, pushing Miroku back, throwing a series of high hits and low hits in a pattern unseen to Miroku's eyes.

Miroku saw it coming too late.

He had just risen from a crouch that had helped him dodge Onigumo's last attempted hit. When he had jumped back up, the same head-aimed hit was coming at him, sharp edges sleeping while the flat sides fought.

--

Inuyasha watched as he fell, blood covering his ear, his head glistening while the sun shone upon him. A cloud of dirt rose as Onigumo nudged him aside with his foot in what seemed slow motion.

He glared at a satisfied Onigumo, telling himself that if Miroku were dead, Onigumo would have to suffer. Their glares lingered, closely followed by silence.

--

A tear rolled down her cheek as she watched a trickle of blood flow down Miroku's. Inuyasha roared as he ran out to fight Onigumo, pulling out his sword at the same time.

The clang of swords was not at all pleasant. How men lived to see the first day of their lives that they would fight in battle was horrifying, but that was the lifestyle of all nine-year-old boys in the Sengoku Jidai.

She fought away her tears, shaking her head, as she tied back her hair to watch Inuyasha fight.

--

Sango herself had only had an encounter with one of them, yet she felt like they could help her get back to Fukui, back to her father.

She felt like yelling the injured man's name, though she knew none of it. To rouse him, to get him off of the arena, she felt as if she might be accomplished.

--

_"Umm, sir… Tessaiga, sir…"_

_The newly honed and sharpened Tessaiga was handed to Inuyasha by the boy._

_"Use her well,"_

_Inuyasha nodded as determination filled him, as if the sword had lust for winning._

--

He dodged the horizontal stomach-aimed hit unsuccessfully, but was unaffected. The kimono from ITC was so baggy that the sword only touched the cloth, while Onigumo cursed.

Inuyasha aimed the same hit Onigumo had done to Miroku at him, flat edges bound to do little damage. Onigumo saw it and ducked before it could hit him, which gave him the chance to slash low at Inuyasha's legs.

He felt himself bleed, but could not see it, for the color of his kimono was already a blinding red. Blood stains could not do much to intimidate him. He shook out the leg that was cut and started at it again, pushing Onigumo back until he would have to step aside.

Inuyasha had a plan made already. He came in more daunting from the left, while keeping his sword at his right after every attempted hit.

Onigumo seemed to be going at super speed. He dodged every one of Inuyasha's attempted hits successfully, but luckily did not get a chance to hit Inuyasha.

Soon Onigumo was pushed back into the railing, and had not other choice but to step out to his own left, where Tessaiga waited.

In a quick slash all the way down his forearm and a duplicated hit to the head that had put Miroku down, Onigumo fell, on one side of the arena where Miroku stirred slightly.

Onigumo's second was slow to rise from his seat. He was an incredibly burly man, name unknown to Inuyasha, but he looked scarred to fight Inuyasha after he had defeated Onigumo.

Using the same trick on him, he was down fast, though Inuyasha was a few inches short of reaching his head.

Sporting three minor cuts and a face of relief, he sheathed Tessaiga and briskly jogged over to Miroku, helping him up, as few scattered cheers arose.

As soon as he and Miroku had gotten off of the arena and under the ten t Kagome was in, soldiers had grabbed all of them: Sango, Kagome, Inuyasha, and Miroku, and were hauling them away. They fought as they walked through the halls of the castle, passing the main one that Sango had been in shortly, "discussing" something with Lord Kagewaki; trudged up a flight of stairs and into a small room.

A soldier was waiting inside, and the three that held them stopped, obviously waiting for something. The soldier originally there rose from his seat and opened a hatch in the low ceiling. The soldier nearest Miroku provided a chair.

They all waited, expectantly, as if they would walk into the prison all by themselves without an explanation.

"You have brought harm to our general, the famed Onigumo."

"Against law…"

"You have injured our general badly,"

Inuyasha scoffed as he helped Kagome up into the hatch. "As it was fated!"

With that, he waited until Miroku was up, and then helped Sango up into the hatch. Climbing up, he slammed the hatch behind him.

--

"Fools…" she mumbled, glaring at the ground, as if it were transparent. She pulled her robe under her, settling down.

Kagome found her grandfather in one corner and sat down next to him, leaning on him and the stacks of hay behind them. Everyone seemed sluggish, as if time had no existence.

She bolted upright, after many moments of silence, remembering Miroku and Inuyasha's wounds.

"Come here," she said to Miroku, putting her hand on the spot in front of her.

Ripping off a piece of her skirt, she dabbed at his head, wiping off dried blood until no more came oozing out.

Sango looked up, suddenly appearing to realize her surroundings. Looking at Inuyasha, she said, "Your friends?"

"Yes…" he said, bowing his head slightly as Kagome pulled him over to wipe his cuts. After a while, he said, " Osewa samadesu hayaku wa, hime-sama… Goshinsetsu arigatou. Iroiro arigatou gozaimasu."

The Fukui princess shook her head, smiling. "Yorokonde."

...-¡Finito!-…

Hehe. Sorry. I felt like adding that lil' Spanish exclamation. If it shows up on is kinda slow-paced, huh? Tell me if I need to hurry my $$ up or if it's just fine.

I know that I only did the countdown once, but I got around to not using the book as much, so I didn't look back at the countdown times. By the way, if you were all like "WHAT THE $ WAS THAT!" at the time you were reading the countdown, it was the time they had left to get the Professor (which they already did) before they blew up. KABLOOIE!

I'm kidding. It was the countdown of the time they had left until the machines left back home altogether without them. Then they would be left there. I would have blown up a long time ago if it were a countdown of the time I had left for the chapter update. KABLOOIE!

When I first started writing this, I _was_ taking the standardized testing. They suck. So does rat-boy.

**TRANSLATIONS**

Eien no Honoo. (Eh-EE-enn no HO-no-o)

Eien no Eternal; Honoo Flame. Origin Greece. Fire that spreads because of water. Called "Greek Fire" in Timeline.

Jian. (Ask someone Chinese.)

The Chinese word for a sword.

"Osewa samadesu hayaku wa, hime-sama… Goshinsetsu arigatou. Iroiro arigatou gozaimasu."

"Thank you for you help earlier (himeprincess!)… I appreciate your kindness. Thank you for everything."

"Yorokonde."

"With pleasure."

"**ALRIGHT! IT'S SUMMER VACATION TOMORROW!**

Whatever will I do? Whatever will I do?

"I shall make…**an illustrated journal!" **Tomo Takino

"If you're going to make a journal, you should-…" Chiyo "Chiyo-chan" Mihama

"**SUCKER! **I ain't makin' no stinkin' journal!"

"Will you relax already?" Koyomi "Yomi" Mizuhara

Bwahahaa. Cracking up. That's exactly how I feel about my fanfiction right now.

By the way, that was a strip from Azumanga Daioh called "Losing it"… Book 2 of thy almighty mangas… It **_SO_** doesn't kick Inuyasha's $$ though…

I am taking a break for 3 weeks to Europe (much to my friends' hatred for me ((coughKatherinecough))) and thus will not be updating anytime during the three weeks. (7/2—7/23.) I guarantee, though, that I will have my FFF (FanFiction Folder) drafts with me (as well as my flute, my music binder, Timeline, The Subtle Knife, and perhaps a diary to record reviews, if I'm that bored. Not likely. And again, Tomo comes to mind). I will write when I have free time, but pray that Simba doesn't eat my homework.

Have a good vacation, guys!

xkumaxchanx

p.s.… Wish my sister a happy birthday in a review! Her b-day is going to be when we're at Europe! Plus, it will make her review numbers go up!

My cousins have a Shih Tzu named Simba.

Review mine, too, you butts!


	8. Gladly, Gently, Slyly

Chapter 8 Author's Note-WIMHS- What I Might Have Said…

2 years previous: School has started already, and I'm LOVIN' IT! But, do not worry- that might just mean more time for me and Narabi no Toki! Haha! I will probably update less quickly by _at least _half a week.

1 year previous: AGH! Mrs.… Perini… infiltrating…mind! Sixth grade! GAH! Haha! Notice that that was like a word scramble of the first word?

"Presently", when I had started Chapter 8: I'm sorry. School is busier than I thought. We have lots of math homework (4 to 5 pages a night), and many projects, papers, and other things that the teachers like to dump on us. All's going well in my head, though. Well, like usual, I mean. I'm not any crazier or more stupid. I think.

I take that back (so there's me crap for ye). I just noticed that I was staring at this page for a full minute. _Without reading it._

* * *

Chapter 8- Gladly, Gently, Slyly

* * *

After Kagome had finished, Inuyasha stood to lie down on the hay. Kagome threw the blood-caked pieces of cloth to one vacant corner of the room as she stood up to observe the room. 

It was smelly, a damp stench, and they were the only ones in there. Even then, Kagome concluded that it couldn't have been them; the time period was very gruesome, with many bandits.

It was a room with a low ceiling, like the one below, so she had to duck to get around.

She decided that she would sleep on the hay as well like Inuyasha when she hit her head on the ceiling, and thus the straw roof, of the prison.

At once there was a blinding light, and the gap in the straw revealed a bright blue sky that caused her to raise her hand above her eyes and squint.

A way to escape.

-

They all sat in a circle, contemplating whether they should escape or not, and what the risks would be.

"Let's all just go up through the damn hole!"

"No, Inuyasha. If all five of us were to go, we would be noticed straight away."

Sango nodded to Miroku's thoughts.

"So who goes," Kagome asked. "And what after that?"

"It would be obvious," Inuyasha said. "Get in the right way and get us all out."

"But then that one would have to go through the castle's main hall. There are many guards there," Sango said, looking nervous. "One would have to be very unnoticeable. Or a formidable fighter."

Miroku suddenly placed his hand lightly on hers to silence her- she blushed- and bent over from his seat, legs under him, cheek pressing against the wood.

"It's so boring, being a prison-keeping soldier!" the earpiece translated.

"There's never any commotion! No…" he gulped something down. "…excitement."

"You tell that to the Lord! Or worse, Onigumo!"

"Haha! You'd _like_ to get him in trouble, wouldn't you? Cheers!"

"Cheers!"

They sounded drunk.

Miroku sat back up. "We could always go down,"

"And then?" the Professor asked tiredly.

"I say we goto Fukui. We can deliver Sango there, and maybe even find that rumored passageway. We could excavate it at home,"

Sango looked confused by this.

Miroku made a mental note that he would explain it later.

"What do you say? Up or down?" In turn, Inuyasha pointed at each of them in the circle.

"Down."

"Down."

"Down."

Miroku smiled, instead of giving an answer, and started stomping around so that the soldiers would open the hatch.

--

_"Spray this directly into anyone's face. It was a mixture that some of the scientists back there made. But then we just completely stopped using them, for no reason at all. Sesshoumaru thought that it might be better if we didn't take them in. Anyway, it should knock them out for at least half an hour." Kagura was about to hand one small spray cylinder to each of the three, but then she pulled them back as she turned her back, as if she was about to walk out of the cage to join Hakudoushi, while Kagome, Inuyasha, and Miroku dropped their once-outstretched hands slowly. "Don't tell Sesshoumaru."_

_They nodded; Inuyasha looking quite disgruntled. She handed the cans to them._

_"Welcome to the Sengoku Jidai."_

_--_

Inuyasha touched the can as he thought of defending everyone. Sango and Kagome, especially. Sango, for one, was a big part in this war, and Kagome, well…

He noticed that he was gripping Tessaiga, that he still had it with him, that he was still gripping it tightly.

Aside from everyone else, he sat lazily, as if put off by something. He was just waiting for the action to come to him, the end of Tessaiga's sheath resting on the ground, hilt at his shoulder.

He bolted from his seat as the frighteningly sharp tip of a sword poked through the floor where his leg had been seconds ago.

"Quiet up there!"

As the soldier wiggled the sword out of the little hole it had made, Inuyasha was tempted to pull out Tessaiga and stab it back down at the soldier. But, he thought, they would be doing that soon enough, whether they wanted to or not.

Kagome jumped back when the hatch opened abruptly to admit a head of an armored soldier, his face incredibly red, eyes blinking rapidly, unaware, and drunk.

Inuyasha took Tessaiga up in a sweeping motion and hit the soldier at the neck, where his helmet could not protect him. Having had Tessaiga sheathed, it could not have done much. While the soldier was still blinking, not comprehending, Inuyasha kicked off his helmet. As it rolled to Kagome's feet loudly, Inuyasha became occupied as the man grabbed his foot.

Swiftly, as if in one motion, Inuyasha jumped over him to the other side of the hatch, the man's left arm placed uncomfortable-looking over his right, still gripping Inuyasha's foot, and Inuyasha kicked him down by the shoulders.

The man's grip was lost, and he fell with a loud thud, and a hiccup.

Inuyasha put his hand on the edge of the square hatch and jumped down easily beside the man and kicked him to the side.

Tessaiga was now drawn, and he moved to the side as on soldier came running clumsily towards Inuyasha's left arm from in front of him, swinging his sword around unnecessarily. As running turned to tumbling and front turned to back, Inuyasha slashed at the man's own left arm.

Ending with a jab to the back with Tessaiga's hilt, Inuyasha looked up through the hatch and nodded. Miroku jumped down while a soldier grabbed Inuyasha from behind, attempting to choke him with his arm locked tightly around Inuyasha's neck while Inuyasha dropped Tessaiga.

Thinking quickly, Inuyasha reached to his side while kicking the soldier in the shins, and sprayed the contents of the can into his face so swiftly that Kagome, watching from above, could not catch the movement and was surprised when the soldier suddenly slumped and clattered onto the floor.

Inuyasha's head automatically swiveled, looking over his back at Miroku and the last soldier, now laying face-down on the wood. Miroku stashed away the spray can and went under the hatch to help the rest down.

As Inuyasha sheathed his sword, Kagome picked up a bow from the corner of the room, as well as the two full quivers lying next to it.

"Ready?" Inuyasha asked, cocky.

They nodded in reply.

**31: 15: 58**

**1:00 AM, ITC**

"On their own? You mean, just for the moment, right?" Kouga asked.

"Yes."

"And how long is that?" he demanded.

"About nine hours to fill the cave with new air and get the machines back together."

Kouga brushed off shards of glass from his forearms and the back of his neck, blood coming to his hand in little streaks that looked like scratches from a cat.

"And if they try to get back?"

"The machines will reject them, leave them back there," Sesshoumaru replied calmly. "They will not be able to arrive back here until, at most, twenty-four hours have past and we've cleared up there. They only have…" He glanced at a large screen on the wall, "…31 hours left."

-

"How many were injured?"

"Four. None of them were extreme. Glass in the skin, in the eyelids… Nothing compared to what it could have been." Kikyou responded, looking out the window of Naraku's office, watching the ambulances drive off, sirens wailing like crying dogs.

"Look. Look." Naraku said, his back turned to Kikyou as he wrote something on the 2-meter-wide whiteboard behind his desk. She turned, clipboard hugged against her chest.

He had drawn a short-term timeline. Labeling the left end "two weeks previous (March 1)", the right was "present".

"See this? Two weeks ago, nothing was out. And then, _then_- we had Totosai. His death brought that cop from Nagoya…" he scribbled down "Totosai" and "Nagoya cop" on the board, "…and then Higurashi,"

Scribbling.

"…And of course, his four students. One, who we can't get rid of. Sesshoumaru's keeping him occupied."

Scribbling.

"And then, of course, four technicians going to the hospital, all from ITC,"

Mad scribbling.

His teeth were gritted.

He took a big breath, and then let it out abruptly.

"So. How long until they can get back into the cave?"

"He estimated nine hours…"

"And _then_ we can send more back? Search and rescue?"

Kikyou was silent until she cleared her throat unusually.

"Are you sick? Or is that a no to my question?"

"All the machines were destroyed."

He paused, then: "Really."

They stared at each other blankly.

"Well, I might not be able to control this all," Naraku said, slamming the dry erase marker down on his desk, "But I sure as hell am going to try."

---

"Shut up!" Inuyasha whispered fiercely. He, as well, was controlling "this all".

They walked slowly down a hallway, Inuyasha and Miroku in the front, Kagome in the back.

As Miroku peered around the corner, Inuyasha talked to the rest.

"…to the forest, just to get any soldiers off our back."

The Professor nodded, but he felt that annoying little tug, like something was wrong.

--

"Oi! You!"

"Musashi-people!"

There were yells as their group ran through a small hall that would lead them out, eventually.

"Soldiers! Horses!" a guard yelled to nobody in particular: no soldiers were present in the hall.

There were few in the hall at that time, but, judging from that yell, more were to come.

They ran as quickly as possible, some soldiers who had heard the call following on foot, yelling, swords or spears at the ready.

Eyes glared; children hid behind their mothers or fathers in fright at the scene.

Inuyasha ran as quickly as he possibly could, now beside Kagome, pulling her along the road by the arm, looking over his shoulder at the soldiers every now and then, but they were far; about 10 meters away.

As planned, they ran for the forest. But it would not be easy, with the soldiers behind them.

And then they heard hoof beats: the riders had been sent out.

They entered the forest within seconds, and they parted their ways: Inuyasha and Kagome together in one direction, Miroku, Sango, and the Professor the other. They knew that they would join up again soon.

Inuyasha spoke into the earpiece he had just tapped: "Miroku, turn off your earpiece. Professor, you too."

Static. And then he turned off his own.

"Shh," he warned Kagome; the riders would be there soon enough.

They were at a steady jogging pace when Kagome tripped over a root that had probably been placed there on purpose.

Inuyasha tried to grab her hand or arm, to break her fall, but she ended up on the ground, kneeling.

He kneeled next to her as well, examining the damage: a large scratch on her right palm, and pretty much nothing else, but: "Ow."

"What?"

"My ankle," she said.

"What? Do you want me to carry you or something?"

He regretted his words almost immediately as Kagome's face lit up slightly. Despite the fact that it sounded like the most horrible idea that ever spawned to him, she nodded.

His eyes grew wide in disbelief, and then narrowed with a frown.

Hoof beats.

Yells.

"Argh."

He stood up and walked around in front of her, then knelt again.

Gladly, she put her arms around his neck, and he lifted her up.

Gently, at a swift pace, he ran further into the brush.

The horses had entered the forest and slowed to a walk. Inuyasha sped up and put Kagome down when he thought that they had a good enough distance.

Inuyasha stood watch, casually leaning against a tree, arms crossed.

Kagome, meanwhile, crawled under a large bush that was abundant in the forest. Its roots were thin and stuck out at sections in the ground, but its leaves were huge, and, for some reason, furry. It was perfect for Kagome because Inuyasha couldn't see her when he had "lost" her.

"Inuyasha! Get down here!"

Then he saw her, and climbed under the bush, for there was death by beheading or life by embarrassment.

He thought, _You choose._

He blushed when he saw how close her face was, and turned his head away, pretending that he had heard the hooves pounding in the dirt.

While looking for the others, Inuyasha found them up a hill nearby, hiding behind separate trees.

Miroku was peering downhill for any sign of the riders. Inuyasha called to him, and when he finally looked after about two minutes, Inuyasha motioned for him to come down the hill.

Miroku nodded; disappeared behind the tree, and emerged again with Sango and the Professor.

Quickly and carefully they came down the hill, always cautious for the soldiers' arrival.

It was silent when they reached the bottom but for the cry of a soldier: "Retreat! Demons!"

There were various yells from many different people, the sad cries of men falling, and the last piercing shots of the soldiers' arrows.

And then Inuyasha saw them: a writhing swarm of bloodthirsty demons of all kinds: mutated birds, trolls, oxen, even unnamable ones resembling snakes that floated easily in midair.

Tessaiga was already out, Kagome's arrow notched, and Miroku's zanbatou ready.

Miroku was fighting a particularly vicious-looking hawk demon while Inuyasha was being pushed farther away by a swarm. Kagome had shot down many, but limped along slowly.

She helped Inuyasha by shooting down the demons in the swarm one by one.

And then the demons turned on Inuyasha, vengeful, and headed straight towards Kagome, who still shot them as they shrieked.

Inuyasha ran as quickly as he possibly could- he was a blur to the Professor- and scooped Kagome up right before the demons hit.

She was on his back yet again, Tessaiga had killed many of the demons, but something was wrong.

Tessaiga was not as it was before. It was pulsing. Inuyasha almost thought that he could see an echoing image of Tessaiga emanating it. Before it was a thin blade with dents and scratches, but immediately it had become a huge one: a little bit less than a shoulder's length wide. At the section where hilt had become blade, there was a large lump of who-knows-what.

All of them at the clearing stared as he ran, Kagome on his back, following the Professor, running from the demons. The same swarm cut after them.

-

Up a pair of stairs, Inuyasha set Kagome down next to the Professor. The ledge was open: leaves consisted of the ground. It must have been a lookout section to the Chinese.

Inuyasha cut through them in many different swings, but soon enough, they all lay dead on the floor.

They had run a considerable distance from Miroku and Sango, so he spoke into the earpiece.

"Miroku?"

There was static; Miroku should have been hearing it as well.

"Inuyasha."

"To Fukui."

They had acted like a school of fish. The shark had come, and they had scattered.

**30: 25: 09**

"Sango-hime. Please get in. We're going back to Fukui."

"Hai." Sango climbed into the canoe, wrapping her cloak around herself tightly and picked up her skirts.

Miroku got in as well, picked up the oars, and started rowing.

Ishikari-gawa's splashing was the only sound for about ten minutes, until:

"Um, are you married?"

To this Sango only smiled and shook her head.

Miroku sighed gladly; continued rowing.

-

"Lord! We found these at the monastery doors, resting."

Kagome was asleep on Inuyasha's back, but the soldiers pushed Inuyasha and the Professor forward to their lord, and then surrounded them.

They were at the river's edge, standing in front of a lord.

"Mm? Are you from the domain of Musashi?"

Inuyasha paused to think. "Yes."

"What is your business here?"

"We have lost our friends in the forest. The local demons split us up."

"How do I know that you are not spies?"

"Ask Sango," Kagome mumbled against Inuyasha's shoulder.

"Kagome? I'm going to put you down."

"Yeah…" Once he had put her down, she said again more firmly to the lord, "Ask Sango."

At once Inuyasha understood.

He turned away. "Miroku? Miroku."

"Hai, Inuyasha."

"Give your earpiece to Sango. Make her talk."

Inuyasha took out his earpiece and gave it to the lord with two hands.

"Sango-hime," he told him, grinning slightly with reassurance. He pointed to his ear when the lord seemed confused.

-

Miroku said, "Sango-hime, you must speak into this." He pointed to the earpiece. "But… I cannot take it out… So…"

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder slyly, pressing her ear to his.

"Sango?"

"Hai,"

"You know this man, Inuyasha? And those with him?"

She recognized his voice with a smile.

"Hai, chichiue."

* * *

Notes: Narabi no Toki Ch. 8: Gladly, Gently, Slyly **

* * *

**

Naginata: A staff with a fancy blade at the end.

Musashi's domain: What would now be Tokyo. The soldiers assume that they are from Musashi because they just popped out of nowhere.

Chichiue: Father

2 meters: Roughly six feet

10 meters: Roughly thirty feet

* * *

Sengoku Jidai turning into the Sengoku Jidai now? 

>>Oh yes.

Demons?

>>Loverly.

Tessaiga?

>>Who-knows-what.

Perverted ways in the canoe?

>>Most definitely.

Kirara?

>>Probably not.

Chichiue?

>>I'm not yours. But he's the lord of Fukui. Thus making Sango "princess".

>>Hey, imagine if it was all like "Luke, I am your chichiue."

And Kohaku?

>>Coming soon.

# of pages?

>>Thirteen, in your face. With a total of _three thousand eighty one words._ But really, that's not too much.

Review, please.

With _gusto._


	9. To Fukui

Hello! Vacation has just started, which means I get to write more. This also means that I have to do my extra-credit packets and more crap alike.

But I am truthful in saying that I _am_ capable of writing at least one more chapter in this three-week break. Look forward to it.

* * *

Chapter 9- "To Fukui"

* * *

Sango had hidden her expression well enough when she was speaking to her father, but now Miroku held a red handprint on his cheek. Rowing still, he heaved a sigh and looked toward the water's edge. They were reaching the end of the stream.

He looked at the trees; fantasized something was moving. His eyes trailed to the water, and he shook his head, reassuring himself that it was their very own reflection.

And then he found himself gazing at Sango. She sat primly at the edge of the canoe's seat in front of Miroku. Her hair was tied with a red cloth at the very base of the back of her head, loose strands hanging at the sides of her cheeks. Her kimono had various layers -maybe about four or five- that were all different colors, and she was wearing a knee-length form of a trench coat that added to her elegant appearance. She appeared with a blank face, without worries; she seemed happy to be out of Ling Sheng's prison cellar.

And he asked her what she was thinking.

She smiled. "What Kohaku is doing."

Miroku understood, but she explained, "Kohaku is my brother. Chichiue allows him to roam…_if_ he is with his army," she gave a small laugh, looked up to the clear, mid-afternoon sky. "Seventeen years old, and already with an army at his side."

Miroku smiled and looked away at the trees again; thought they were moving as they reached the bank. He jumped out into the water, pulling the weight of his wet robes sluggishly. He waded to the front of the canoe and pulled it onto the pebbles that, over and over again, vanished behind their thin, cool blanket.

And suddenly, just as Sango was climbing out with her many kimono layers picked up, arrows were sent flying at them from the opposite shore.

Then it dawned on Miroku: he truly _had_ seen something moving: soldiers.

"Come!" Miroku said, wrapping his arm around Sango's shoulder to shield her from the arrows that landed not meters away. They felt like centimeters to him.

As they ran up a small, inclined hill, Miroku looked up to see more archers.

Though the archers were right ahead of them, their arrows did not pierce the flesh of the two, but flew, in an arch, directly past them.

Miroku thought jokingly, _these must be new archers._

But then Sango yelled, "Kohaku!" Running from Miroku's side, she jumped over to a horse and patted Kohaku's shoulder.

"Aneue!" Kohaku said, grinning, jumping off his steed. "Welcome back."

She smiled back at him. Eagerly, she asked, "Do you have Hiraikotsu? And Kirara?"

He frowned. "No. Father does, with his group."

Kohaku looked over Sango's shoulder at the archers at the opposite side of the stream, who were all dead, and then at Miroku.

He raised his eyebrows at Sango expectantly.

"_Ryokousha desu_," she said. _A traveler._ "His name is Miroku."

Kohaku held out his hand for Miroku to shake. Miroku took it; shook his hand heartily.

"Welcome to the army of the taijiya."

-

"Where do you come from?" the Lord asked.

Inuyasha was caught off guard. "Er…Hama-…-matsu."

"Hamamatsu?"

"…Hai."

The Lord mumbled, "I have never heard of Hamamatsu before."

Little did he know that it was a great part of the land that he would conquer.

Inuyasha walked alongside the cart that Kagome and her grandfather sat upon; the Lord's horse walking slowly along,

Stopping every now and then for shrubs on the trail. They were headed back to Fukui after the Professor had been inside the monastery. There, he had received his blessings from many priests. Surprisingly, there were many priestesses there, blessing Higurashi as well.

But he had left a message with the priests and priestesses:

_Let pass a young monk and Sango-hime. Allow them what food you can for the trek to Fukui; the journey will be hard. As for the girl, supply her with her weapon and her cat._

_Go well,_ they had said, _and make haste. For they are coming._

29:12:39

**8:50 AM, ITC**

Kikyou strolled into Naraku's office carrying the regular clipboard and pen.

With a sigh, she asked, "Would you like the good or the bad new first?"

"Bad," he said, forehead in both hands.

She paused before starting, glancing at her clipboard. "Our technicians were taken to a hospital in Hyakki. When they arrived, Sato Matsuyamo was on duty. The same doctor who had tended to Totosai."

Naraku took his face out of his hands. "She works at _both_ hospitals?"

"Yes, but she's mostly at Nagoya."

"Is that _legal_?"

Kikyou ignored him and went on. "She reserved the MRI when she heard the patients were from ITC, and put two of them on it."

He mumbled, "Must've known he was split…"

"Yes. Totosai had gone through an MRI as well. So she was most definitely looking for it."

Naraku raised his eyebrows, waiting for the worst.

"And she and Takuro are friends,"

He waited for her to explain.

"The police officer."

"Oh," he leaned back in his chair, but suddenly bolted upright. "_Ohh._"

"Yes, she called him. Would you like the good news now?"

He shrugged and raised his eyebrows. "It can't be any worse."

"So Takuro calls the chief police to go down to the hospital with him; some reporters are there, and they're all expecting something big.

"Instead, all the external injuries are minor so far. All that it is is flying glass and some metal in the skin layer."

Naraku nodded all the while, looking at a blank spot on the wall.

"And then they gather around the MRI and they find that none of them have transcription errors. They were just technicians, after all.

So the chief was mad, the hospital manager on shift at the time was mad. The reporters left and a man almost died because the MRI was all blocked up. So Sato is worried about her job. Takuro is disgraced."

And Naraku started smiling.

"The reporter has agreed to come here, too."

"Ms. Hare?"

Kikyou nodded.

"The one that's doing a newspaper article on us?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Next week."

"We'll give her the usual tour."

Kikyou looked back at her clipboard, tapping it with her pen. "More bad news."

Naraku glared at her. "What?"

"Kouga's found the prototype."

---

Sango and Miroku had been given one horse each, and were trotting alongside Kohaku.

Miroku had put the zanbatou between the reins and the horse's neck, and it rested on the stirrup, next to his foot.

Sango was sitting side-saddle, though Miroku could tell that she was itching to sit as Kohaku and Miroku were.

Suddenly there was a scratching noise at his ear. He tapped the earpiece.

"Miroku?"

"Inuyasha."

"Where are you?"  
"We're reaching the edge of the woods. We're with Sango and Kohaku."

"Ah. The Lord tells Kohaku to hurry back; they have a job lined up. Tell Sango that we left Hiraikotsu and Kirara in the hands of the head priest and priestess. Expect them to give you food enough for the journey to Fukui. Remember that the battle is just over a day away."

"…yeah."

"Be seeing you."

And there was static.

He scooped up the courage to give Kohaku his orders. "Sango, we are to go to the monastery for Hiraikotsu and Kirara. Kohaku, your father wishes for you to go ahead, and make haste; you have a job to be at with you army, and the battle is soon."

Kohaku looked to Sango for confirmation.

She smiled. "Go, Kohaku. This man would not lie."

He nodded and called to his men. His horse whinnied at his command and-

"Wait."

Kohaku stopped his horse; patiently turned back to Sango. She turned to Miroku.

"You said we will find Kirara there, yes?"

He nodded in reply.

"Then we will give you back your horses, Kohaku," she said, and climbed off of her horse. Miroku followed suit and held the reins lightly in hand.

"Ah. Thank you." He urged forward two of his archers; they bowed their heads politely, and took their places in the saddles.

He called to his army to go ahead, and said to his sister and the man, "To Fukui."

-

She turned her head to look back at Miroku, who held his zanbatou carelessly dangling off his shoulder.

She pointed just ahead to the right and mumbled "Um…"; Miroku looked up from the ground and trailed from her eyes to her arm, down to her hand pointing at the small monastery.

At lease, it seemed small from the hill they were on top of.

They moved slowly down the hill and eventually found the trail. It was easy to go down, though as they walked, dust from the route got kicked up into their faces. Sango whipped up a filter mask (that covered her nose and mouth) from out of nowhere; Miroku used his large sleeves.

Quickly they made their way to the steps of the monastery. _More walking_, Miroku thought while looking up the narrow steps. _Must be two stories high._

And as soon as they reached the doors, they knocked politely. The left door slid with a quiet _crack_ing noise in front of the right5 door, and a short man stepped out.

He had a moustache that hung just past his chin, and his eyebrows were just as bushy.

Sango bowed. "Mushin-sama,"

He returned the bow and turned to Miroku. "Come in. I see from your dress that you are the monk."

There was an air of awkwardness around Miroku. _Inuyasha told the priests to expect a monk?_

He stopped thinking about it, let Sango walk ahead of him, and stepped in himself.

The monastery was small; there were four square pillars used for hanging offerings to the Buddha, laying incense, and purification of fruits and such; many men and women bustled around, giving the place a crowded feeling.

There seemed to be a ceremony taking place: there was an elderly monk touching a younger girl's forehead, mumbling, "…woman should not be daring among men or assert herself boldly, does not apply to the house of worship…"

The girl stood, bowed, and they went on with their ritual as Miroku, Sango, and Master Mushin walked to a small room off to the side that was somewhat secluded.

When Mushin slid open the door, a small cat hurtled itself toward Sango's chest. At first, she surprised, but she brought up her arms to catch the two-tailed cat, smiling in realization.

"Kirara!"

The cat mewed softly and climbed to her shoulder happily, and Sango walked into the room, Miroku following silently.

"Hiraikotsu," Mushin said, raising his hand to point at it in the corner of the room, his arm hanging lazily in that direction for a few more seconds.

He put his hand down and continued: "You may both stay in here fro the night." He turned to walk out and leave them alone.

"Ah-"

Mushin turned again, stumbling, and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"If possible, could we get separate rooms?" Sango asked, slightly embarrassed: her cheeks were reddening. "Please?

Both Miroku and Sango sweatdropped. This was the first time they had both gotten a good look at Mushin: his nose was red, eyelids heavy.

_Drunk!_ They thought, exchanging glances.

Mushin waved his hand in every possible direction, swiping the air, and said, "This will do. This will do…" He walked out the door.

Miroku very nearly laughed: a small chuckle and a one-sided smile was the only evidence. This was not at the fact that Sango's question was ignored, but at the fact that a _monk_ was drunk.

But Sango took it the way that was likely of him, glaring daggers.

And then Miroku started to laugh. "Don't worry, I'll sleep out here." He had walked out of the room, carefully avoiding the track of the sliding door, and stayed just outside of the doors. Giving Sango a final smile, he shut the door with another crack.

-

Miroku followed after Mushin when he had shut the door soundly. "Mushin-sama, if there is anything I can do to help…"

The stubby man whirled, (and Miroku stepped back, startled,) apparently wanting to say something, but he stopped and let the hand that was hanging in midair drop to his side. He held an innocent face, staring at Miroku's shoulder.

…Or rather, the zanbatou.

"How is it that you were given this zanbatou? You are not a beginner, or an apprentice monk. An apprentice would be young…"

Miroku held a calm, expectant face aimed toward Mushin.

"-er."

Miroku seemed satisfied by that and was about to dig up an answer when Mushin turned his back on Miroku and started walking away.

"Follow me, monk." He hiccupped in the middle of his step, making him jolt slightly, and his feet slam down on the wooden floor of the monastery.

Miroku again was startled by the man, but followed him nevertheless. Respectfully, he kept quiet until they reached a small room with a cot much like Sango's given room. He guessed that it was Mushin's own.

"Here." He said, swinging a long object in Miroku's direction. "It's yours now."

Stepping back so as not to get hit, Miroku saw that it was a shakujou: it was pointed at the staff's bottom end, gold in its entirety, and held a large circle at the top in which the rod ran through with designs. The circle held three rings on either side of the staff, making a loud, high-pitched, jingling when Mushin shook the weapon, intending for Miroku to take it. Otherwise, they seemed pointless.

"I…can't," Miroku said. "This is yours. I'm not even-"

"Take it. I do not have much longer to live, anyway. You seem fit to be inheriting it." Seeing Miroku's face, he shook it even more. "Take it, monk; don't tire an old man's arm!"

Miroku seemed to be struggling with himself over whether or not to take it.

Suddenly, he bowed deeply, straightened, and graciously accepted it.

Again, after looking it over, he bowed and stayed like that until Mushin left the room, taking the old zanbatou with him.

Miroku walked over to the doorframe and watched the men and women bustling around. He took in the layout of the monastery, looking at the small garden in the middle of the room. The roof was open above that small square, allowing rain water to come through. He knew that that water would be used for baptisms and purifications. It was considered holy water as soon as it fell and man caught it.

Suddenly he caught his eyes on Sango, carrying a small bucket of water and a rag on her shoulder. Kirara followed closely at her heels, more rags transported on her back. She turned the corner and closed the door to her room once she was in.

Miroku made his way through the priests and priestesses over to her room. Knocking, his shakujou jingled over his back.

"Come in," she said, a hint of curiosity in her voice.

He slid open the door and saw her kneeling on the floor, Hiraikotsu resting on her lap.

She looked up. "What's that?"

He lifted his eyebrows; pointed at the shakujou. "This?"

She nodded.

"From Master Mushin. He took my zanbatou."

She furrowed her brow, looking at a blank spot on the wall, and continued at Hiraikotsu, not worrying about the shakujou any longer.

He watched as she carefully washed the oversized weapon. She had now tied her hair low behind her back, so that there was only a small amount of her hair in a tail, fastened by a white piece of cloth. She went over every inch of the boomerang, rubbing any dirt off.

"So, um…"

Sango looked up at him.

"…would you like any help?"  
She smiled and handed him a dry rag; he came and crouched in front of her, trying to work for the same results as hers.

Soon enough, she declared that they were finished.

Miroku stood, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. "Well, it's late. So I'll just be taking these for you…" he leaned over to pick up the dirty rags and the half-empty water bucket. "And I'll be going to sleep_ out here_." He gestured to the spot outside the door that looked oh-so comfortable.

"Good night, Miroku-sama," she said, standing with Hiraikotsu. "And thank you for your help."

-

Miroku jumped, waking from his sleep, and immediately stood, his hand on the door of Sango's room, just in case it happened again.

Suddenly, when he heard another crash from within the monastery, he opened the door to Sango's room.

He knew it was rude to be intruding like this, but he didn't know what was happening. He ran to Sango's cot and shook her shoulder, waking her, while Kirara ran out of the room, growling.

Sango woke almost immediately. When she was sitting up, Miroku helped her out of the cot, hand on her shoulder to usher her out of the room in any circumstances.

When Miroku heard a loud roar from the enlarged Kirara, he moved to the door, looking out, seeing demons come from the hole above the garden.

Looking back at Sango, he saw that she wasn't dressed in robes anymore.

She was dressed in all black, complimented by small bits of red.

The outfit she sported had small shoulder and elbow guards that were red, and Miroku suspected that the section from the elbow down was detachable; he recalled seeing the black sleeves on her earlier, but not the high neck. The sleeves ended like little fingerless gloves at her knuckles. There was a lengthy sash around her waist that held a small katana, but otherwise, it was completely unneeded. Her hair was tied high above her ears with a red cloth (_Wasn't it white before?_ Miroku thought). Her red kneeguards were identical to her elbow and shoulder guards, though they merged with her boots. Hiraikotsu was held behind her back, her hand near her ear.

Miroku was surprised. A princess _and_ a taijiya? It was funny; there were no tales of Sango being one to exterminate demons. She hadn't seemed the type to do so when they weren't in danger, but now, it seemed to fit.

She adjusted the piece at her stomach and tightened all the long red strips of cloth on her back, waist, legs, shoulders, and last, on her hair.

"I felt the demonic aura, so I put this on before sleepi-…_What?_" she asked demandingly of Miroku, seeing that he was gazing at her with a small grin.

"Nothing," he said, still smiling. "Let's go."

Carefully, they walked out of the door and to Kirara's side.

Demons flew around everywhere: there were snakelike ones, trolls, and even ones like humans in appearance.

Miroku cut to it, slicing them with his jingling shakujou.

But there was not on trace of the priests or priestesses. Were they all dead?

Soon the demons' carcasses lay everywhere on the monastery floor, and there were no more demons attacking them.

Sango prepared Hiraikotsu far behind her back, made a turn for momentum, and hacked the last demon into two, and then four pieces as it came back to her hand.

Suddenly, Mushin came out of his room, appearing even more drunk than the day before. He held the zanbatou he had taken from Miroku in his hand, the blade just grazing the ground.

He walked up to Miroku, placed a hand on his shoulder, and said, "You have saved the monastery, monk. How do we repay you?"

Miroku bowed his head modestly. "You don't-"

"Miroku-sama!"

Miroku stumbled backwards, clutching his arm. Mushin had brought up his zanbatou to stab Miroku, but it had only sliced a long cut on the outer part of his arm.

Mushin towered over Miroku, who was now on the ground. And suddenly, something that looked much like a lizard's tongue flicked out of Mushin's mouth.

"Sango-hime! That was an-"

"-urn grub! I know!"

Soon, more of the priests and priestesses emerged form rooms, their "tongues" flicking continuously.

"The urn keeper!" Sango yelled, dashing over to Mushin's room. Holding Hiraikotsu trailing behind her, she suddenly launched Hiraikotsu spinning at the small, froglike demon. In a flash he was split down the middle, and the jug he carried rolled towards Sango's feet.

She quickly picked it up after catching Hiraikotsu and stood in front of the horde of priests and priestesses. They all quivered, and the lizard-like tongues exited their mouths in wisps of smoke, back into the jar.

Mushin's, as well, returned to the jar, and Sango crushed it with a small swing of Hiraikotsu. Mushin fell to the side and lay still, snoring.

Sango ran to Miroku's side. "Are you okay?"

He grunted.

She leaned over to pull up his sleeve and look at the cut, but his hand was occupied.

Almost yelling out in surprise, she jumped up and automatically hit Hiraikotsu on the back of Miroku's head.

He smiled embarrassedly, touching his head.

-

"'To Fukui', Kohaku had said." Sango's face was red as she pulled her cloak on above her robes. She had removed her taijiya outfit to dress properly.

The little "inevitable" thing, Miroku called it, that had happened ten minutes ago, stayed fresh in Sango's head, bothering her. "Let's go."

* * *

Notes: Narabi no Toki Ch 9: "To Fukui"

* * *

1 ½ weeks of break gone! 

"Hyakki" is not a real place. Unless Katie's brain is a real place.

Yes, I have changed Sango's dress. Royalty wears more layers, and now she's a princess.

Yes, I replicated the experience of the episode where Miroku is getting his wind tunnel mended. Don't kill me. I am much disclaimerful.

Yes. "Younger", because Miroku is not old at all!

Mushin is startling.

Miroku gets his shakujou in the way I always saw it.

Hey, _you_ describe Sango's outfit.

The End.

Kidding.

There's a hint in the text about my next fanfiction. That is, if I'm going to make it at all. It's an interesting enough plot to me, but it's pending. (hint: dialogue)

Never fear! Chapter 10 is –cough starting to be written cough- here!

15 pages! 3768 words!

Review.

With _gusto_.


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